The police chief doesn’t answer right away. Not much about the murders is known to the public—the grisly details, the M.O., as Klonowski puts it. The chief wants to choose his words carefully. He sighs. “Yes. The victims tend to be females in their early twenties. However, we have not determined a motive in any one of these incidents…uh, that’s to say we haven’t found any relationship between our nine victims.”
The camera cuts to images of police ducking under the yellow tape, and the reporter’s voiceover says, “Evidence all points to the same killer. Most victims were abducted three to seven days prior to when their bodies turned up.”
Pictures of the nine victims flash across the scene. In the middle is Brandy Hartfield, the girl whose face I saw stapled to a mannequin I had helped put on display. So pretty.
She looks so much different than how I first saw her, her face a slab of bloody flesh, stretched over the mannequin like some cheap Halloween mask.
The feed cuts to the news anchor back at the studio, sitting there in his posh suit, an empty mug in front of him. “Well, Pam Wright is in Green with the latest. Pam, what are investigators doing right now to try and catch the killer, before another victim turns up?”
Pam, the reporter from earlier, a rigid face of professionalism on this chilly spring morning, says, “Well, right now, local law enforcement has increased staffing. The FBI is working with them as we speak, and they’ve put out a forty-thousand-dollar reward for any information pertaining to the murders—”
That’s when I turn it off. I can’t watch anymore.
The pictures of the victims haunt my television screen. All of them pretty, young girls.
My picture could’ve been up there, too. I was so close to being the ninth victim before Alicia Rodriguez, and now I may possibly be the tenth.
I stand up from the couch. I can’t stay here any longer.
I don’t feel safe.
Growing up, I wanted nothing more than to be independent, on my own. When I turned eighteen, I got this apartment. With scholarships, I was able to keep most of what I earned at Cocoa’s. It was refreshing being on my own, being adult. It about broke my mom and dad’s heart that their only child wanted to move out so soon, in a time when most people my age were staying at home until their mid-twenties and beyond.
I remember my mother taking me aside, her hands on my shoulder. “Is it us, Mel? Is it something your dad and I did?”
I smiled and told her of course not. It was just time for me to spread my wings and fly. I didn’t move far, either. Before my mother got cancer, they were a few towns over, in the Falls. I visited them a lot. Dinner every Sunday, movie night on Mondays because I didn’t have class on Tuesdays. Saturdays, Mom and I would go shopping and out to eat. Now she’s in hospice care with a looming expiration date, and I’m potentially a serial killer’s next victim.
It’s amazing how quickly things can change for the worse.
I’m staying strong, though, about my mother. When we found out she had cancer and the doctor gave her six months to live, I was an emotional train wreck. We all were. I’ve accepted it now, I guess.
Besides, there’s always a chance her condition improves, and she can move back into the old house in the Falls and Dad can take care of her like he did the first couple of months, before he couldn’t handle it anymore.
My only suitcase isn’t a suitcase, but a gym bag from when I ran cross country in high school. The devil mascot grins fiendishly at me. Below it is Melanie stitched in cursive. I pile in as many clothes as I can, my toothbrush, deodorant, an extra pair of shoes. I take it into the kitchen, scoop the rest of Chester’s food inside. Grab my phone charger, my retainer case, and then Chester’s carrier. He hates the thing. As soon as he hears the clinking of the metal grate at the front, he bolts, probably thinking I’m taking him to the vet’s.
I chase him around for a solid two minutes, and when I push him inside, he claws me deeply up the arm, not far from where my gnarled scar is, courtesy of the Mannequin Man.
“We’re just going on a vacation, buddy.”
He yowls.
“I know, I know.”
Hisses.
“Just for a little bit. Then we can come back.”
My gym bag hangs over my shoulder, my purse and Chester’s carrier are in hand, and then I leave.
Seven
It takes about twenty minutes for me to arrive at my old house. Dad’s not here. His Toyota isn’t in the driveway. I park in the spot my mother always parked in.
The flowerbeds in the front of the house are blooming, daffodils and tulips, but there’s a lot of weeds, too. Mom planted them when I was very little, and they come back every spring like clockwork.
The lawn is overgrown, one of the shutters on an upstairs window hangs crookedly, and the white siding looks dingy.
Dad was always a handyman. He took pride in the lawn and the tools and the power washer, but not since Mom got sick. Since Mom got sick, everything has been on the decline. The last time I was over here, there was a pink shutoff notice taped to the storm door from the electric company. I don’t know their money situation, but I do know my father’s hardly going into work anymore, and Mom’s insurance doesn’t cover her treatments and hospice care completely.
I unlock the door and drag my bag inside. I get Chester last. I let him out. He goes right to the picture window, where Dad put down a cut-up yoga mat on the wood so Chester wouldn’t ruin it when he was a kitten. He’ll be dozing in the sun soon enough, like he never left home in the first place. Cats are adaptable creatures. Give them some food, a litter box, and a place to nap for eighteen hours out of the day, and you’ll have a mostly happy cat. Throw in some petting, maybe a cat tree, and then you’re golden.
As I go to the front door to lock it, a car pulls in.
It’s my father.
He gets out and looks at my car, then toward me. I’m behind the glass. I raise my hand, hoping there’s not a guilty look on my face. Or even worse, that I’m not outwardly expressing how I feel on the inside—petrified, damaged, hopeless.
I push the door open for him. As soon as he steps in, he sneezes twice, back-to-back in quick succession. I reach toward the sofa table and grab him a tissue. After he blows his nose, he says, “Chester’s here, isn’t he?”
I shrug.
On cue, Chester meows from the picture window, where the sun is lighting up the glass so bright, I doubt anyone would’ve been able to see him from outside, let alone Dad, who now always seems distracted.
“So you’re here to stay?” Dad’s voice sounds hopeful. He’s been lonely for the past four months, even lonelier since Mom went to hospice.
“If that’s okay…?”
He smiles wide. John Padgett is only in his fifties, but in the last six months alone, he looks like he’s aged a decade. Deep wrinkles have etched themselves around his mouth, crow’s feet stretch from the corners of his eyes like bare tree branches, and the purple-blue bags just below the crow’s feet make it seem like he’s been punched every day for the last half-year. But when he smiles, some of that age and stress washes away.
“Of course it’s okay, honey. Of course.”
That’s when I break down and start crying. It’s been building up since I got the text message from Klonowski, even more so since I saw the photos of the crime scene.
My father takes a step back. He’s blurred through my tears. I feel something at my legs, brushing up against me, hear Chester’s meowing. He doesn’t want to be fed. He’s trying to comfort me the best he can. But Dad’s surprised. He didn’t expect this…hell, I didn’t expect this, either. Not really.
“Mel, what’s wrong?”
“The news,” I say. “You haven’t seen?” It’s not easy to talk. I wish my mom was here, and I wish she was okay.
“No—”
“He killed again.”
That’s all I have to say. Dad knows exactly what I’m talking about. He sat in on a few of the therapy sessions
I went through. He knows the story as well as anyone.
“Where?”
“Somewhere in Green,” I answer. “Another girl’s face—” But I don’t get to finish because he’s wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. There’s not many better places for an upset girl to be than in her father’s arms. It’s safe and warm and reminds me of when I was little, without a care in the world.
Take me back, please.
He shushes me, bends down, and kisses the top of my head.
“You’re safe here, Mel. You don’t have to worry.”
Eight
Dad’s not much of a cook, he never has been, but he knows my favorite comfort foods. The meals I’d eat when I was going through a breakup, a nasty cold, or after losing a race.
He’s standing over the stove, stirring the tomato soup with one hand and flipping a grilled cheese with the other. A few minutes later it’s on the table in front of me, steaming.
“Oops, I almost forgot,” Dad says. He opens the pantry and pulls out an opened bag of oyster crackers, tips them into the soup. “Your favorite.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“Mel, put it out of your mind,” he says. “They’re going to catch him.”
I haven’t told him about the outfit they found on the mannequin Alicia Rodriguez’s face was stapled to. My outfit. I don’t know if I can tell him that. He has enough to worry about.
He sits down. He’s looking at me the way he did the day I told him I’d started my first period and Mom was out shopping—like I’m a live wire. He holds a beer in his hand. A little too early to be drinking, yes, but I’m not going to say anything.
“So,” he says, “are you still seeing that nice girl you met at school? Catherine, right?”
“Taylor.”
“Oh, yeah. Taylor.”
“And no, I haven’t been with her since November.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dad says. He’s never been very comfortable with talking about my personal life. Not because I’m gay—no, I think he’d be the same way if I dated guys. Still, liking women can’t be an easy subject to talk about with one’s daughter. “I liked her. She was nice.”
“Very nice.” I take a bite from the grilled cheese. Dad burned it slightly, just the way I like it. It’s good, despite me not having much of an appetite right now. “Listen, Dad, we don’t have to talk about that. I know how it makes you feel.”
He runs a hand through his thinning hair, which has gone a few shades closer to gray, then he takes a gulp of his beer. Liquid courage. “Mel, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been…distant these past months since your mom’s been sick. I know you need me, too.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
And it hurts lying to him.
Nine
After I finish the food and my father has popped open his second beer, I ask when he’s going to see Mom.
“Soon,” he answers. “You wanna come?”
I do. I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. I miss her, and I don’t know how I’m going to handle it when she’s gone. The doctors are sure she’s on her way out, and I’m not much for hope these days. Ever since the attack, the Mannequin Man has been constantly on my mind. Just recently, he had fallen to the backdrop, a persistent dull throb like a headache that won’t go away, but now, as I think about my favorite peacock-styled blouse and the pencil skirt with the ruffles, the Mannequin Man’s sickening eyes blink on like beacons in my imagination.
Seeing my mother will at least help to put these thoughts away again.
For now, my mind wanders.
I know the Mannequin Man did that on purpose, dressed the mannequin up in clothes like mine. He knew he was sending a message. He knew it would get back to me.
I was the only person who had seen him and lived to tell about it…that we know of. I was the person who gave his description to the cops. He wants me. He wants to get revenge.
They never found any of the bodies. Just the faces. Every victim has been a local girl, but their bodies may as well be nonexistent.
Dad and I leave the house and drive the few miles to the hospice center. The ride is quiet. I debate telling him again about the outfit they found on the mannequin, but I can’t.
The hospice care is called Haven Light. Places like these always have weird names that remind the people there that they’ll be dying soon. When the doctor told my mother she only had six months left, probably less, he recommended this place to us. He said Mom’s care would be a lot to handle. He was right. Dad and I tried, but we were no good at it. It hurt to walk into the house I grew up in, the place that always smelled of scented candles and Mom’s homemade cooking, and to see my mother lying on a hospital bed where her queen-sized mattress used to be, all hooked up to beeping machines, wasting away.
Wasting away.
That may be a blunt way of putting it, but it’s the truth. Mom has been wasting away rapidly ever since we got the diagnosis.
All that keeps her human and not a skeleton is a thin layer of skin plastered to her bones.
Seeing her each visit, I can hardly hold back tears. And when I leave, I do my crying on the ride home, never letting Mom see me weep for her. It’s all a lie, it’s all me trying to be strong.
She’s in the same room, in the same clothes, in the same position she was in when I last saw her less than two days ago.
She’s asleep. Her breathing is ragged and loud. Labored. The soft beeping of the machines is barely heard over the breathing, but at least she’s still breathing. Her cheekbones jut out, her eyes are sunken in, her lips are blue. She looks like a corpse already, and it kills me. My mother, the woman who raised me, reduced to this.
Dad and I enter the room very quietly. Her blinds are up so she can see the sunny spring day if she wants to. I pull up a chair next to her, breathe in the chemical smell that surrounds the place.
Then I close my eyes.
Dad crosses his legs, pulls out a paperback book, and reads.
This is usually what our visits consist of.
Silence. Waiting.
Mom, I think, doesn’t even know we’re here. That’s okay. I understand. She has been getting worse and worse over the weeks. Last Monday she called me Myrtle. Myrtle was her great aunt on her mother’s side. Myrtle has been dead since the late eighties.
I’d rather hear her call me Myrtle than this—this silence.
We sit for an hour, Dad content to page through his copy of The Lord of the Rings for probably the hundredth time—it’s by far his favorite book, as well as film series, though he’s not a fan of The Hobbit trilogy. Don’t get him started on those. Still, his love for all things Tolkien make holiday shopping for him a breeze, especially with the advent of Etsy and the legions upon legions of handmade Frodo and Gollum crafts.
Me, on the other hand, I am not content with the silence. My throat is scratchy, I’m parched. I need a drink. Preferably one with vodka in it, but I know that’s wishful thinking. It’s been a hell of a day.
The cafeteria has a vending machine. Change jingles in my pocket, and a can of Coca-Cola is on my mind. I walk down the corridor, past nurses wheeling their carts full of medicine and red-eyed family members, turn left at the T-junction, and head toward the cafeteria. It smells of burned food. Pizza or hamburgers. Whatever it is, it’s not exactly pleasant, though I’d take it over the smell of urine and medicine that permeates throughout the rest of the building.
As I duck into the alcove, I’m knocked out of my stupor. Literally knocked.
I’ve collided with a woman. The snacks she holds in her hands go flying. Thank God she’s not holding a Styrofoam cup of piping hot coffee. We both stumble, and I almost fall.
“Oh, sorry!” I shout, bending down and picking up her snacks—Reese’s, honeybuns, Hostess cupcakes.
“No, no, my fault, my fault,” the woman says.
I crane my head, my hands full of vending machine junk.
Now…I am not a romantic type.
Growing up, I was, I guess. Like all little girls, I dreamt of my Prince Charming, of my wedding, usually attended by the President and the Queen of England and princesses from all different types of exotic countries, but this was back when I was confused. Well, confused might be a strong word. I guess I knew what I liked, but society and all the relationships I’d seen growing up had showed me what was considered right, normal, and the feelings I felt for the opposite sex were buried. Until high school, at least.
Anyway, I’m not a romantic type now. I don’t usually believe in love at first sight.
But with this woman I bumped into…I don’t know. If there is something such as love at first sight, this is it.
Our hands touch when I pass her the honeybun. I am not joking when I say there is something like an electric spark.
The first thing I notice about this woman is the shape of her face. It’s the face of a runway model’s: sharp, high cheekbones, perfectly symmetrical. Her lips are full, her eyes are a deep aqua blue. And then her hair. It’s auburn and shiny. It looks like it would feel like silk if I ever got to run my fingers through it, and please, God, let me be able to do that one day. Please.
We stare at each other for what feels like a long moment, and I’ll throw another cliché out there: I’m lost in her eyes, a shipwrecked girl floating on the open sea, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Hi,” I say. A simple greeting.
“Hello,” she says back. God, even her voice is sexy. Sultry, slightly deep, confident, like a Golden Era movie star.
For the first time in my adult life, I’m nervous about interacting with someone I’m attracted to. I don’t feel in control; I don’t feel like I have any power. The women I meet—met—were usually frequent visitors of Club Mamba in the college district. Sure, some straight women drank and danced there, probably wanting to get away from the constant ogling and harassment at the other bars, but my chances at finding another lesbian—or even a girl who wanted to experiment for the night—at Mamba were much better than anywhere else in town. So I had that going for me. I can usually spot straight women.
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