Bad Thoughts

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Ashes to ashes,” Winters noted.

  Dornich moaned softly as the knife shifted inside him. Winters turned towards him, showing a slight melancholy smile. “I almost hate to tell you this,” he said, “but you didn’t even get a quarter of them. Herbie and I left a hell of a lot more corpses behind than what you found.”

  Dornich tried to push himself up to his elbows, but fell back to the floor. Winters made a soft tsking noise. “Jesus,” he said, “look at you lying like that. Bleeding like a goddamn stuck pig.”

  He stepped forward and aimed a kick at Dornich’s midsection. Dornich, though, caught his foot and pulled it towards him, sending Winters off balance and falling backwards. As he hit the floor, Dornich rolled on top of him, his heavy mass crushing Winters’s chest, his clenched fists hammering at his face. And then his hands were searching out Winters’s throat, his thick fingers closing around it, squeezing it.

  Dornich came close to squeezing the life out of Charlie Winters and Winters knew it. His eyes bulged as they reflected the horror of that possibility. His tongue thickened as it pushed out of his slit-like mouth. He tried to scream. A strangled, gasping noise came out. Like a cat hacking on a hairball. The sound brought a slight smile to Dornich’s mouth.

  Ultimately, though, it was a race, one which Pig Dornich just didn’t have enough time to win. The little life he had left dripped out with his blood and he collapsed lifeless on top of his killer.

  * * * * *

  Winters had to struggle to pry Dornich’s dead fingers from his throat and then to push his corpse off of him. As he lay on the floor gasping for air a horrible fury raged in his eyes. When he could move he turned to the dead man. By the time he left, Pig Dornich’s office looked worse than any slaughterhouse.

  Chapter 34

  Shannon felt someone nudging him. He opened an eye and saw DiGrazia sitting next to him, pushing him with an elbow.

  “You were drifting off, buddy,” DiGrazia said.

  “Thanks. How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “A lucky guess. I wanted to let you know Susie’s okay. How’s your therapist doing?”

  “She’s still alive. That’s all they’re telling me.”

  DiGrazia lowered his voice. “How’d you know about it, Bill?”

  “You’ve seen my statement?”

  “Don’t give me that. How’d you know about it?”

  “Just what was in my statement. I dreamed about him. He told me he was with her and he was going to kill her. When I called you I thought he was referring to Susie. Later, I realized it was Elaine. You’ve dreamt about him, too, haven’t you, Joe?”

  DiGrazia stared at the wall across from him. Grudgingly, he nodded. “Once.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I really didn’t see him, he was too close to me. He kind of stood off to the side of me whispering things.”

  “But you smelled him?”

  “Yeah, Jesus, I smelled him. When I woke up I just about crawled on my knees to the almighty porcelain goddess. And I gave one hell of a devout prayer.”

  “He’s real, Joe. Elaine’s office had that same smell. A few days ago that smell was in her car. The sonofabitch was probably hiding in it waiting for her. When he saw me he must’ve jumped out. He must’ve been what we heard moving around in the Dumpster. Sonofabitch. What kinds of things did he whisper to you?”

  “About how you were killing these women.”

  Shannon nodded slowly, the muscles tightening along his jaw. “Yeah, what do you think?”

  “I’ll tell you what our friends at the FBI think. That you set this up. An accomplice of yours attacked Elaine Horwitz to throw us off.”

  “They really think that?”

  “Your friend Swallow does.”

  “And I just happen along and save her life?”

  “We don’t know that yet. Anyway, it wouldn’t matter. If she lives and she doesn’t know the guy’s a friend of yours, how does it hurt you?”

  A muscle along Shannon’s jaw began to twitch. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s what it looks like. Someone’s pulling a pretty masterful frame job on you.”

  “You tell Susie this?”

  “No. I want her afraid of you. This way she stays hidden and safe. I don’t want this psycho picking her next. I’m sure you don’t, either. And anyway,” DiGrazia paused and showed a thin smile, “I could be wrong.”

  “I have to talk to her.”

  “Sorry, pal. By the way, she’s staying out of work until I tell her it’s safe, so don’t waste your time bothering anyone at her office. If your therapist recovers we’ll get a description of the guy and that will be that. You got any ideas who’s doing this?”

  Shannon shook his head. He knew DiGrazia was right. If Susie were home she’d be in danger. If he knew where she was the killer would probably end up knowing, too.

  “No,” he said, “I keep thinking it’s Herbert Winters, that maybe I left him alive, but I checked with the California state police and he’s long dead. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever put away who’d be up to this. How about you?”

  DiGrazia sat silently for a moment, a darkness clouding his face. “All this is beyond me, pal. Especially this dream shit.”

  They sat silently for a few minutes. Finally, DiGrazia suggested that Shannon go home and get some rest, that he would call him when there was news about Elaine Horwitz.

  “You might as well,” DiGrazia added, “you’re not going to be allowed to see her.”

  * * * * *

  There were a pair of messages on his machine from a Phil Dornich. Both messages had Dornich stating he was a private detective hired by Shannon’s wife and that he had important information for him. Shannon replayed them and then searched through the yellow pages. He found Dornich’s ad, the one Susan had circled. When he tried calling the number, he got an answering service. Dornich had been out the past few days but was expected back any minute. Shannon left his name and number and hung up.

  It was almost one o’clock. Shannon didn’t feel like resting. He didn’t feel like facing Winters, at least not yet. He got in his car and headed towards the Dornich Detective Agency.

  * * * * *

  The door to Dornich’s office was unlocked. When Shannon opened it and looked in, a wave of nausea rolled through him. With over a decade on a city police force he had seen his share of killings and mutilations, but he had never seen anything close to this. Gore and blood were splattered everywhere and what was laying on the floor was a perverse mockery of a human body. Shannon turned away for a moment, steadied himself, and then reentered the office.

  The familiar rancid smell had mixed with smoke and the combination stung Shannon’s eyes. He noticed the trash can laying on its side and the charred ashes that had spilled out of it. He had to step carefully to avoid the pieces of flesh and gore that littered the floor. The corpse had literally been torn to pieces. It looked like both a knife and hands had been used. Maybe even teeth.

  Shannon made his way to the trash can, sifted through the ashes, but didn’t find anything useful. He returned to the body and knelt over it. The corpse’s suit jacket had been ripped to shreds and was soaked through with blood. He found a blood-smeared and ripped plane ticket receipt in the jacket’s inside pocket. Shannon held it up to the light but couldn’t make out the printed destination. He checked the dead man’s pants pockets and came up with a set of car keys. As he stood up he noticed for the first time that all the fingertips had been bitten off the dead man’s hands.

  After leaving Dornich’s office, Shannon found a men’s room down the hallway. Another corpse lay on the floor. The body was that of a man in his seventies. His head had been crushed and he had been stripped to his underwear. One of the sinks was filthy, streaked with a mixture of blood and dirt. A pile of soiled paper towels littered the floor next to it. Shannon moved to the sink at the end and washed his hands and then tried to remove the blood d
roplets from his shoes and clothing. He got most of the blood off his shoes but only smudged it into his pant legs and coat.

  The FBI had followed him to Dornich’s office building. He peered out the front door and saw their car still parked outside, the agents in it both looking bored.

  The back exit of the building led to an adjoining parking lot. After a few tries, Shannon found the car that matched Dornich’s keys. In the trunk was a suitcase with an airline baggage tag still attached. The tag read NC.

  North Carolina . . . Mornsville, North Carolina.

  Shannon had parked his car in front of Dornich’s office building. He left it there with the FBI agents. Instead, he cut through a back alley, and then another office building and another alley before hailing a cab.

  * * * * *

  He was able to get a three-ten flight to Raleigh-Durham. While airborne he dozed off several times. There were no intrusions by Winters. No death. No pain. Just blissful nothingness.

  The plane landed a few minutes after five. It was past dinnertime before he drove into Mornsville.

  Chapter 35

  Malcolm Winters had the same chin, or lack of chin, as his son, Herbert. The rest of him, though, was different. Frail, hunched over, his eyes pained, his face sagging. His wife, Ethel, was a brittle thing of a woman. All wrinkles and bone. Step on her and she’d crack like a stick. The room they were in had a scrubbed, powdery smell. No hint of that familiar, rotting odor. Everything clean and in its place. Medical journals lined several book shelves.

  “He left home when he was eighteen,” Mr. Winters explained.

  Sitting was too much for Mrs. Winters. She popped off the floral-patterned sofa, her hands nervously pulling at each other. “Are you sure I couldn’t get you anything?” she chirped out in an unnaturally brittle voice.

  Shannon declined. Mr. Winters took hold of his wife’s arm. Reluctantly, she let herself be guided back to the sofa.

  “There was no way to know that he would do what he did,” Mr. Winters said. “We gave him a good home. We never hit him. We did everything you’re supposed to do.

  “There was never any hint at all,” he said after a long pause, “except for that poor Chilton girl.”

  Ethel Winters put a hand to her face as if she were about to weep. “There were all those animals,” she said.

  “There were no animals!”

  “Of course there were. Those stray dogs and cats—”

  “How were we supposed to know he had anything to do with them?”

  “You knew. We both knew. Just like we knew about little Marjorie Chilton.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Mr. Winters snapped back at his wife, his sagging face growing beet red. He turned back towards Shannon. “At the time, neither us had any suspicions about that girl. There was no reason for us to have had any. There were no reasons for anyone to have had any.”

  Ethel Winters stared at her husband in stony silence before looking away, her lips pressing hard and virtually disappearing within her lined, wrinkled face.

  “Of course, anyone can look back with hindsight . . . but how can anyone expect a thirteen-year-old boy capable of doing something like that? How could you think that of your own child?” Mr. Winters asked.

  “He was only six when he started with the animals,” Ethel Winters said.

  Mr. Winters ignored her. “If I had any idea that he had done those things to that little girl I would’ve had him committed. I wouldn’t have let him walk free. You have got to understand he was a quiet, introverted boy and people were suspicious of him because of that, and well, his appearance. He was unnaturally pale, almost an albino. And along with inheriting my chin . . .”

  His voice trailed off as he lost himself in thought. Then, almost pleading, “I’m a doctor. If there were any indications of deviant behavior, of psychosis, don’t you think I would’ve picked up on it?”

  “You ignored it,” his wife said.

  “I didn’t ignore anything!”

  “I can tell you firsthand he was as psychotic as they come,” Shannon said.

  “I know you can,” Mr. Winters agreed, trying to smile. “I feel sick inside about what happened to you and your mother. I wish there was something I could’ve done to have stopped it. I’ve been wishing that for twenty years.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Shannon said dryly. “Do you have any other children?”

  Mr. Winters shook his head, surprised.

  “How about any friends who might’ve been with your son?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Winters looked at each other. “We told the other detective all about that,” Mr. Winters said.

  “About what?”

  “About my brother Earl’s boy, Charlie. The two of them were together all the time as children. They left Mornsville together. Didn’t that detective tell you any of this?”

  Shannon shook his head.

  “God help us,” Ethel Winters murmured, “the two of them even looked alike. Ugly little bastards.”

  * * * * *

  Charlie Winters’s parents were both dead. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Winters had heard from their nephew since he left Mornsville with their son. “I told the police that he might’ve been involved with what happened to you and your mother, but I never heard anything more from them,” Mr. Winters said.

  Before Shannon left, Mrs. Winters moved close to him, her bony hands touching his arm. “The FBI had told us they were investigating Herbert for other murders. They never found any, but I know there were others. God help me, I’m afraid to think how many there were.”

  * * * * *

  Shannon was able to get on a ten o’clock flight back to Boston. He dozed off quickly, almost as soon as he closed his eyes. Charlie Winters was waiting for him. Winters’s rotting, sickish odor was waiting for him.

  “I know who you are, Charlie,” Shannon said.

  “You’re a day late and a dollar short, bright boy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Winters smiled. A thin, diseased smile. “Everybody knows about me. They’ve been showing my picture on the news all night. As it turns out, you were the last to know.”

  “You’re lying—”

  “I wish I were. Sad to say I’m not. And even sadder, our special little relationship is coming to an end. After tonight.”

  “Elaine must have recovered—”

  “No, sorry chump, she’s dead as a doornail.”

  “Then how’d they find out about you?”

  Winters’s pale, rattlesnake eyes dulled a bit as he stared at Shannon.

  “Damn you! Answer me!”

  “You see, I don’t have to,” Winters said after a while, “but I’ll trade you. You tell me why you didn’t call any of your cop friends after speaking to my aunt and uncle, and I’ll tell you how I got careless.”

  “I was waiting until I got back to Boston.”

  “You’re lying. Even in your dreams you’re a little pissant liar. I think you were planning on keeping it a secret. I think you were going to try to track me down so you could enact your little lying pissant revenge on me. And to hell with all the innocents who would die in the meantime. And, Billy Boy, there would be plenty. Is that it?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “If you want to trade you have to trade fair. Is that it, Billy Boy?”

  “Okay. That’s it. I was going to find you and then cut your fucking ugly head off just like I did your cousin. And then I’d have a pair of the god ugliest bookends on earth.”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Winters said. “Except, I’m not keeping my end of the bargain. You see, I just keep taking from you. Taking and taking without giving anything back. I took your mommy and, for the most part, your daddy from you. I took your childhood, your career, and even your sanity. And I took that pretty bitch redhead you dream about. Oh yeah, earlier tonight, I took your dago cop partner.”

  Winters nodded slowly, his face expressionless, his skin a grim, icy white. “That’s right,�
�� he explained, “I got him tonight. I snuck up behind him. I think he smelled me at the last second but before he could completely turn around I had an ice pick in his kidney. And then we had some fun. A couple of hours of hard rock and roll.

  “So come on,” Winters asked, “what’s left for me to take?”

  “You sick piece of shit.”

  “That’s not it,” Winters said, shaking his head with exaggerated pity. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why would I want to take a sick piece of shit away from you? Come on, think harder. It’s really pretty easy. Even for such a bright boy.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to guess what I can still take away from you. I’ll give you a hint. It’s an old joke. Take my blank, please.”

  Shannon didn’t say anything. Winters was only a few feet from him, his body bobbing up and down as if it were floating on the ocean. He wondered if he could end it right there, if killing Winters’s dream self would kill off his physical self. He wanted to try it more than he ever wanted to try anything. Winters seemed to sense what Shannon was thinking. He started to chortle, his slit mouth twisting into a smirk.

  “You don’t want to try that, now,” Winters admonished softly, his singsong voice rising and falling with the bobbing of his body. “If you did, I’d have to break your fingers some more and you’d wake up screaming like a baby. Like last time.

  “Anyway,” Winters added, “being such a bright bulb, you’ve probably guessed what’s left for me to take. If you woke up now you won’t be able to stop me. I’d just have to go ahead and take it. Tonight. Besides, if you could kill people off in their dream states, don’t you think I’d be doing it?”

  Shannon took a step back. “Okay,” he said, “what do you want from me?”