Deeper Than the Dead

by Tami Hoag

  Anne felt everything inside of her quivering like Jell-O. After seeing Dennis Farman’s artwork, she had gone directly from her classroom to Franny’s, where he was enjoying his break between his morning kindergartners and his afternoon kindergartners, sneaking a cigarette out by the sandbox.

  “You have to come with me,” she said. “You have to come with me right now.”

  She turned on her heel and started walking. Franny jogged up beside her in the hall.

  “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Honey, what to do about what? Have you killed one of them? No one will blame you. They’re fifth graders. It’s justifiable homicide.”

  Anne didn’t smile. She didn’t laugh. She led the way into her classroom, took him straight to Dennis Farman’s desk, and opened it.

  “He was doing this all morning,” she said now, and she told him everything that had happened.

  “You have to show this to Garnett,” he said, staring at the drawing. “This is really creepy, Anne. This isn’t something to mess around with—not when you add this to him screaming at you that he wishes you were dead.”

  “If I take this to Garnett, Dennis will be expelled.”

  “Yes, and . . . that would be bad . . . how?”

  “He needs help, Franny,” she said. “He’s got so much rage inside him, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

  Franny’s jaw dropped. He grabbed the notebook out of the desk and pointed at the drawings of women with knives sticking into their bodies. “This is what he wants to do with it! Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “He’s a little boy.”

  “He’s the son of Satan!”

  “He’s the son of a man who beat him so badly last night he can’t sit in a chair today!” Anne said, keeping her voice down even as her temper rose.

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see any marks on him?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell Garnett, give this to him, and let him handle it,” he said, tapping his finger against the notebook to make her look at it. “You have to get this kid out of your classroom before he does this for real.”

  “But, Franny, if Garnett expels him, what’s going to happen to him? He apparently has a difficult home situation. He’s socially maladjusted. He has no friends. He found a dead body, for Christ’s sake.”

  “And let’s make sure the next one isn’t yours.”

  “He’s eleven.”

  “Do you not go to the movies?” he asked, incredulous. “Did you not see Halloween? Michael Myers was SIX YEARS OLD when he killed his sister.”

  “And if we were living in a John Carpenter film, I’d be really scared.”

  “You are really scared or you wouldn’t have come running to me. You would have told me tonight over Chinese. ‘Oh, by the way, Franny, one of my students did the most interesting thing today. He unleashed the contents of his disturbed mind in a sexually sadistic work of art. And how was your day?’

  “And, if you’ll remember, last night you were telling me he was talking about other bodies in the woods, and that his only playmate is afraid of him.”

  Anne sighed. That was all true. But she couldn’t help feeling that being in school with supervision and guidance was a better option for helping Dennis Farman than turning him loose, isolating him, giving up on him. Clearly, no one was there for him at home, physically, emotionally, or otherwise. If she could reach him now, maybe she could turn him around.

  “And where is Mr. Dream Detective?” Franny asked. “Has he called you back?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he needs to get his tight little ass over here to serve and protect or I’m not letting him have his way with you.”

  “He’s not interested in me.”

  “And who can blame him, Holly Hobbie?” he asked. “Do you have anything in your closet besides these Little House on the Prairie dresses?”

  Anne looked down at her outfit—a white puffed-sleeve blouse and a loose navy blue dress that hit just above her ankles. “This is a perfectly nice jumper.”

  Franny rolled his eyes. “Only kindergartners and kinky role-playing prostitutes wear jumpers.”

  Finally, she found a smile, knowing that had been his intent. Irreverence as diversion.

  Sobering, he pressed Dennis Farman’s notebook into her hands. “You have to take this to Garnett, Anne Marie. If you don’t, and something goes wrong with this kid in your classroom . . . You have to do it.”

  Anne looked down at the notebook images of women screaming, blood spurting from their wounds. The first bell sounded. Their warning that lunch period was almost over. Her kids had gym first thing. They would go directly to Mr. Alvarez outdoors.

  She sighed and nodded, already feeling Dennis Farman slipping beyond her grasp. “I’ll go now.”

  28

  Steve Morgan looked like he’d had a hard night: dark smudges under his tired blue eyes, pallor a little to the pasty side of healthy. He was taking Tylenol as Mendez and Vince entered his office.

  Still, he came around his desk and greeted them with handshakes. He was in his thirties, tall and lanky with a firm grip and a full head of sandy, wavy hair.

  “Detectives, what can I do for you?” he asked, returning to his cushy leather chair. “Have a seat.”

  Vince sat down in one of the two visitors’ chairs as if he was settling in for a long stay.

  “Jane Thomas called and filled me in on what’s been going on,” Morgan said. “I’ve been up in Sacramento since Tuesday morning doing some lobbying for the center. I got back late last night.”

  “Then you know we’re looking into the murder of Lisa Warwick,” Mendez said.

  “Yes. My daughter was one of the kids who found her body. Lisa was the nicest person in the world. Who would want to kill her?”

  “That’s what we’d like to find out,” Mendez said. “Ms. Thomas told us you and Lisa worked together on some cases involving clients of the center.”

  “Yes. Lisa used to work at the center. After she got her nurse’s degree, she decided to volunteer as an advocate. She worked the evening shift at the hospital. It left her days free.”

  “How well did you know her?” Vince asked. “Well enough that she would have confided in you if something had been going on in her life?”

  “Like what?”

  “Trouble with a boyfriend, someone bothering her at work, that kind of thing.”

  “One of the ER docs liked to play grab ass with the nurses,” Morgan said. “Lisa asked me what to do about it. That was maybe a year, year and a half ago. I had a conversation with the man about what a sexual harassment suit could do to his career, not to mention his marriage.”

  “And he stopped?” Mendez asked, making notes.

  “He left. Took a position on the East Coast.”

  “That must have been some conversation,” Vince said.

  “I make a living persuading people to see things my way.”

  “You must be very good at it.”

  “I do all right.”

  “Ms. Warwick hadn’t said anything to you about any problems recently?” Mendez asked.

  The lawyer shook his head. “I hadn’t seen her for a while.”

  “She never called? You never ran into each other?” Vince asked. “Never met for coffee, anything like that?”

  Morgan narrowed his eyes slightly. “What are you getting at, Detective?”

  “We have reason to believe Ms. Warwick was seeing someone before her death,” Mendez said, watching him.

  “I’m a happily married man,” Morgan said. “Lisa was a casual acquaintance. I’m very sorry that she’s dead, and it tears me up to think of what she must have gone through. She was a sweet, gentle person.”

  “But you weren’t romantically involved,” Vince said, finding it curious Morgan hadn’t said so himself.
r />   “No.”

  “You know we have to ask,” Vince said apologetically.

  “I understand that, yes.”

  “Can you tell us where you were Monday night through Tuesday midday?” Mendez asked.

  “I was at home Monday night. I left early Tuesday morning—around five—to drive to Sacramento.”

  “We’ll talk to your wife, of course,” Vince said.

  “Of course. I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “You didn’t get back until last night?” Mendez asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you know your daughter had found the body?”

  “Yes. Sara—my wife—called and left messages at my hotel. I spoke with her later that evening.”

  “But you didn’t come home.”

  “I was in the middle of some very important business regarding funding for women’s shelters,” Morgan explained. “Wendy seemed to be fine, considering. Sara was shaken up but able to handle the situation. It didn’t make sense for me to drop the ball and go home.”

  “You’re very dedicated to the center,” Vince said.

  “They do important work that saves women’s lives and helps them make their lives better.”

  “But you’re a man.”

  Morgan raised his eyebrows. “Therefore I shouldn’t care about battered women? That’s a hell of an attitude.”

  “I only meant that it isn’t often men get involved in women’s issues,” Vince said.

  “Abuse isn’t a women’s issue, Detective. Abuse impacts families. Families aren’t gender specific.”

  “Does it bother your wife that you give so much time to the center?” Mendez asked.

  “Sara is very supportive,” Morgan said, checking his watch. “I’ve got a client coming in five minutes. Is there anything else, gentlemen?”

  “You know Karly Vickers,” Mendez said.

  “I’ve spoken with her. She was supposed to start work here Tuesday as a receptionist and file clerk. We were closed Monday. Don Quinn’s mother passed away.”

  Morgan rose to his feet, signaling the meeting was over. “If I had any idea about any of this—Lisa’s murder, Karly Vickers—I would certainly tell you.”

  “If anything comes to mind,” Mendez said, handing him a business card, “please call.”

  “What do you think?” Mendez asked as they returned to the car.

  “I think he couldn’t get us out of there fast enough,” Vince said. “I think you need to have a chat with Mrs. Morgan.”

  29

  Mr. Alvarez, who had played minor-league baseball, had chosen baseball for their gym unit. Mr. Alvarez liked a theme. During the baseball playoffs, they would play baseball. During the football playoffs, they would learn about football, and so on.

  Tommy, who was the ultimate baseball fan, didn’t like playing baseball for gym, because they didn’t really play. Mr. Alvarez took time with each batter to help improve each one’s skills—a tall and tedious order for most of the girls, except for Wendy, who could catch and throw because her dad taught her. For Tommy, it was boring. They mostly just sat around.

  He sat on the bench next to Wendy, watching Mr. Alvarez encourage the hapless and scrawny Kim Karloff to try to hold the bat upright. She looked like she was going to fall over from the weight of it.

  “This is so lame,” he said.

  Wendy didn’t comment. She had been very quiet all morning. Tommy reached over and poked her to make sure she was still alive. The words “quiet” and “Wendy” didn’t go together.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Tommy asked.

  “My dad came home last night.”

  “You’re usually excited when your dad comes home.”

  “He got home really late,” she said, “but I heard him. So I got out of bed, but when I got to the stairs, he and Mom were having a fight.”

  “Oh,” was all Tommy could think to say. His mom was always trying to pick a fight with his dad.

  “She was yelling at him for not coming home the night we found the dead lady. And he said he just couldn’t. And she said, ‘And where the hell were you?’ She said she tried to call him at his hotel, and they said he wasn’t even registered there. Then he said, ‘You know that was a mistake. I called you back.’ And then she said that the mistake was his and he should have covered his tracks better.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think she thinks he’s having an affair,” Wendy said. “You know, a love affair with some other woman, like on Dallas and Dynasty. People are always having affairs.”

  Tommy didn’t know. He wasn’t allowed to watch very much television, and never anything like the shows Wendy was always talking about. He sometimes got to watch MacGyver, but MacGyver wasn’t interested in girls. He was too busy saving people. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “Why do people do anything? Why did somebody kill that lady?”

  “My dad says nobody really understands why someone turns into a serial killer.”

  “That’s scary,” Wendy said. She looked past the end of the bench to where Dennis Farman was tormenting Cody Roache, poking at him with something. Cody kept trying to get away from him, but he never ran far enough or fast enough. “I think Dennis is going to grow up to be a serial killer.”

  Tommy looked over at him. “Probably.”

  “What do you think Miss Navarre did to him?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Miss Navarre is nice. She probably tried to talk some sense into him.”

  “Ha! Like that could ever happen.”

  Dennis caught them looking. Tommy groaned. “Great. Now he’s going to come over here and harass us.”

  “Don’t let him, Tommy. Stand up to him.”

  No sooner had she said it than Dennis made a fist and socked Cody in the stomach. Cody doubled over.

  “And get my head knocked off?” Tommy said.

  Dennis swaggered up in front of them, a sneer on his face. In his left hand he held something wrapped in tissue.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s the lovebirds. Are you having sex yet?”

  Tommy ignored him.

  Wendy’s eyes flashed. “Shut up, Dennis.”

  “Is your gay boyfriend gonna make me?” he taunted.

  “You’re such a moron,” Wendy snapped. “You’re such a moron even other morons don’t want you hanging around.” She glanced meaningfully at Cody, who was bent over throwing up on the grass.

  Dennis’s face began to get red. Tommy swallowed hard, but Wendy was pissed off and kept going.

  “If you weren’t such a moron that you got held back a year and now you’re bigger than everybody, somebody would kick your butt.”

  Dennis got redder and redder. He stepped in closer. “You’re a cunt.”

  Wendy stood up on the bench so she was taller than he was. Tommy looked to see if Mr. Alvarez had heard the C word.

  Wendy was furious now, her hands clenched into fists. “You’re stupid. You’re stupid and everybody hates you!”

  Dennis suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the bench. He took the thing in tissue paper and shoved it in her face.

  “I’m gonna make you eat it!” he shouted.

  The tissue fell away, and Wendy screamed. Dennis pushed her backward into the bench, trying to push the blackened thing into her mouth. Wendy frantically turned her head from side to side, trying to escape the thing.

  Tommy lowered a shoulder and ran into Dennis Farman like a human battering ram. But Dennis was in a rage now, and even though he staggered sideways a step he continued trying to shove the black thing into Wendy’s mouth.

  Tommy took his fist and used it like a hammer on Dennis’s head. Dennis turned toward him and Tommy clipped him in the mouth, splitting his lip. Blood gushed out.

  “You fucking little faggot!” Dennis screamed. He took a wild swing and hit Tommy hard in the face, knocking him off his feet. Dennis’s shoe hi
t him square in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him.

  Tommy tried to curl into a ball. He put his hands over his head to protect himself as Dennis kept kicking him over and over.

  Then suddenly his assailant was gone, dragged backward by the scruff of his neck by Mr. Alvarez, who was shouting something Tommy couldn’t understand. Stars spun before his one good eye.

  Wendy hit the dirt beside him. “Tommy? Are you okay?”

  Tommy was coughing as he fought to sit up. “No,” he croaked.

  They both looked over at Dennis, who was in a blind rage, screaming and cursing and hitting and kicking at Mr. Alvarez.

  They looked at each other, then they looked at the ground where Dennis had dropped the thing he had been trying to shove into Wendy’s mouth: a human finger, blackened and rotted like a bad banana.

  30

  The offices of Peter Crane, DDS, were located in a renovated white stucco, Spanish-style building on a bustling, beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian plaza near the college. Shoppers wandered in and out of upscale boutiques and galleries on the three-block stretch. Sidewalk cafes and coffeehouses were busy with a mix of students, adults, and older people. A guitarist playing classical music sat on a bench outside the bookstore.

  Nice town, Vince thought, spying an Italian place that advertised Chicago-style pizza. He could smell the olive oil and garlic as if he were swimming in it.

  They went inside the dentist’s office and Vince took in the waiting area with its leather chairs and a huge saltwater aquarium built into one wall. Even the magazines on the coffee table were upscale: Town & Country, Architectural Digest, Scientific American. Mendez showed his badge to the elegant African American woman behind the curved wood counter.

  She raised her pencil-thin brows. “How may I help you, Detective?”

  “Can you tell us if a woman named Karly Vickers had an appointment here last Thursday?”

  She flipped back a couple of pages in the appointment book. “Yes. She had a four o’clock cleaning and exam. She arrived at three fifty-five.”

  “We’ll need to speak with Dr. Crane and whoever did the cleaning.”