Slice

by William Patterson

  They had stopped at a red light. “So,” Jessie asked, “what’s your friend’s name?”

  “Aaron,” Abby said.

  A kind of red flash seemed to obscure Jessie’s vision for a moment.

  Red.

  Blood.

  Blood everywhere.

  Her hands were covered in it. Blood was running down her legs.

  Jessie couldn’t speak. She just kept staring at Abby.

  “What—?” she finally managed to say.

  “Aaron,” Abby said again.

  Jessie took a deep breath.

  There are lots of little boys named Aaron, she told herself.

  Of course there were.

  But it was also a fact that when Jessie had first learned she was pregnant with twins, she’d decided the girl Abigail—and the boy Aaron.

  She couldn’t stop staring at Abby.

  From behind her, Yvette Osborn tooted again. The light had turned green.

  Jessie refocused her eyes on the road and drove on.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Well, this isn’t working.”

  Bryan Pierce got out of bed. Behind him Heather and Clare Dzialo were still in a halfhearted lip lock, naked. Bryan lit up a cigarette. He hardly ever smoked, but he needed some kind of stimulating satisfaction now that his erection had withered to a little stub.

  “What’s wrong, Bry-Bry?” Clare asked.

  “Heather’s not into it,” Bryan said with a sulk.

  His wife sighed and got out of bed herself. “I’m sorry, Bryan, but I’m not a lesbian. I don’t get into kissing other girls.”

  “I wasn’t asking you to eat her out,” Bryan spit.

  “I’m a bisexual,” the teenaged Clare said. “I like both guys and girls the same.”

  Bryan patted her head. “You’re a good girl, Clare.”

  Heather snorted, pulling on her robe. “Fuck you, Bryan.”

  He snarled at her, “If you can’t do such a simple thing as kiss this pretty little girl for me, then I guess I can’t ask you to do anything.” Bryan stalked over to the window, where he puffed on his cigarette as he looked out into the night. It had started to rain.

  “Why don’t you two just finish up on your own?” Heather suggested, seemingly utterly disgusted by the whole scene. “I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Okay,” Clare said cheerfully, casting adoring eyes over at Bryan.

  “You know what your problem is, Heather?” Bryan asked. “You have no imagination. None at all.”

  “Fuck you again, Bryan. I have plenty of imagination.” She looked away. “I just don’t waste it on you.”

  He laughed. “Oh, really, now? I’ll bet you’d be more than happy to make out with a girl if John Manning asked you to.” He laughed again, louder. “Maybe he has!”

  Heather’s lips tightened.

  “Why don’t you just fucking admit that you’re sleeping with him?” Bryan shouted. “Why this big goddamn secret?”

  Heather glared at him, then stormed out of the room.

  “Come on, baby,” Clare said, holding out her thin little arms toward him.

  “Get dressed, Clare, and run along home,” Bryan grumbled. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

  “Oh . . .”

  The girl was clearly disappointed. Bryan knew she’d developed a crush on him. She harbored dreams of splitting him and Heather apart, and taking Heather’s place as Mrs. Bryan Pierce. Bryan couldn’t blame the kid for such wishful thinking. After all, he knew how handsome he was, what a great body he had. He was a very successful man. A nineteen-year-old kid would definitely see him as quite the catch.

  He watched as Clare reached around and snapped her bra back into place. She stood and slid her panties back up her legs, and then buttoned her blouse, and wriggled into her jeans. Bryan was getting aroused again.

  But not by Clare.

  When he was finally alone, Bryan opened his closet and found his metal lockbox, hidden under a pile of sweaters. Only he knew the combination. Heather had once asked him what he kept in there. He’d told her stocks and bonds and certificates. In fact, the box’s contents were even more valuable than that.

  Bryan turned the combination and the lid popped open.

  Inside were photographs. Hundreds of them.

  Of nearly every woman he’d ever slept with.

  He’d take pictures of them when they were sleeping, or drunk. He’d spread their legs open, or stick his cock into their mouths, and set his camera to go off. Some of the photos were taken with the women’s consent: nasty girls who didn’t mind posing with cucumbers up their butts or pinching their nipples. But those photos didn’t excite Bryan nearly as much as the ones where he’d managed to sneak a lewd shot without the woman ever knowing it. It was seeing so-called “nice girls” looking like whores that turned him on. It was the very secrecy of it—the unknowing violation—that got Bryan off. He had some of Heather like that in here, but photos of Heather no longer excited him. Bryan dug down to the bottom of the box.

  A toothy grin stretched across his face.

  Here were the photos he was looking for.

  The first ones he’d ever taken, in fact.

  Three Polaroids of Jessie Clarkson.

  His sweet little Jessaloo.

  Bryan had taken them one night during their sophomore year at SUNY Purchase. They’d been up late studying for midterms in Bryan’s dorm room. His roommate was gone for the weekend. When three o’clock rolled around, Jessie’s head began nodding over her book. Bryan told her that it was so late no one would know that she slept over. He assured her that she could sleep in his bed and he’d sleep in his roommate’s bed. Jessie had been too tired to resist. She had zonked out within moments. Bryan had fantasies of fucking her while she slept, but he knew it would wake her up. So he came up with another idea. His cock raging hard and driving his thoughts, he began to fondle Jessie’s breasts through her T-shirt. She was kind of a hippie chick, and didn’t always wear a bra. He was terribly afraid she’d wake up, but when she started to lightly snore, he became more daring. He lifted her T-shirt to expose her breasts. He wanted so badly to touch them, but was too frightened she’d awaken. So he’d gotten out his Polaroid and snapped two pictures, one from farther away, so he could see her face, and then a closeup, so he could see the nipples clearly later when he jacked off.

  But by then he couldn’t stop. He had to get one more photo. But what?

  Setting his Polaroid up on the desk, he’d aimed it at the bed. Pulling his pants down he got up on the bed, and crouched over Jessie. If she woke up now, he was dead meat. But he was driven. His heart was thudding madly. He couldn’t stop.

  He pulled his underwear down, and dropped his cock and balls into his little Jessaloo’s face. The Polaroid snapped the picture.

  Jessie had never woken up.

  She had no idea such photographs existed. But they were Bryan’s most treasured possessions.

  He took them out of the lockbox and placed them carefully on the floor. After so many years, the edges were brown with smudgy fingerprints. Bryan jacked off looking at them, remembering how sweet Jessie’s hair smelled. Even as he shot big ropes of semen across the room, he knew that, with Jessie so close by, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with photographs anymore.

  Bryan had to have her. Sooner or later, he would fuck Jessie Clarkson.

  Whether she agreed or not.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “It’s not that uncommon a name,” Aunt Paulette was telling her.

  “I know,” Jessie said.

  She was sitting in Mom’s chair, holding a cup of tea in her palms, as the rain tapped against the windowpanes. Her aunt sat opposite her on the couch. Abby was upstairs asleep.

  “It was just . . . unnerving, you know, to hear the name Aaron, especially with the whole imaginary playmate thing,” Jessie said. “And Abby’s insistence she’d been playing with her brother.”

  “Let’s just be happy she’s made a friend,” Aunt Pa
ulette told her. “A real friend. Not an imaginary one.”

  Jessie nodded. “Her mood was so improved when I picked her up today. She was positively glowing. You know Abs. She never complains. But in the past, she’d be kind of flat when I asked her about school. Today she was exuberant.”

  Aunt Paulette looked as if she might cry. “I am so happy to hear that.”

  “Let’s hope things get better from here on,” Jessie said.

  The older woman nodded. “Oh, I’m certain they will. I did a tarot reading today. And what came up was the Justice card. I am certain that means Inga’s killer will soon be caught, and we can all sleep better at night.”

  Jessie shuddered. “I wonder if that means the police found something from their search of John Manning’s house.”

  “That I can’t say. I’ve tried focusing in on Mr. Manning, but I can’t get anything.”

  Jessie smiled. “Your powers are failing you, Auntie.”

  She shrugged. “Either that or Mr. Manning is an incredibly defensive, defended, guarded, private man. People can throw up all sorts of psychic walls around themselves that become very difficult to penetrate.”

  “I’d say that describes John Manning.”

  Aunt Paulette nodded.

  From upstairs, there came a bang. They both glanced up at the ceiling.

  Then came the sound of footsteps.

  “Abby?” Jessie called.

  Now there was laughter.

  Abby’s laughter.

  But not just hers.

  There was someone else up there, laughing with her.

  And the footsteps . . .

  Jessie stood bolt upright from her chair, dropping her cup and spilling tea all over the wooden floor.

  There was more than one child running around upstairs!

  “Abby!” Jessie shrieked.

  Aunt Paulette followed her as Jessie took the stairs two at a time. She skidded down the hallway, stumbling a little as a throw rug got tangled around her bare feet. She grabbed ahold of Abby’s doorknob and threw the door open.

  Abby’s room was dark. But Jessie could make out her daughter sitting on the bed.

  Behind her, Aunt Paulette switched on the light.

  Abby was sitting up in bed, smiling at them.

  “What was going on up here?” Jessie demanded.

  “I was just playing,” Abby said.

  “Who was up here with you?”

  “Nobody,” Abby said. “I was just playing by myself.”

  Jessie noticed the window was open. The cool night air blew in. She hurried over to slam it shut.

  “Why is this window open?” she demanded to know. “I never open that window because there’s no screen. Why did you open it?”

  “I don’t know, Mommy,” Abby said. Her little blue eyes looked up at her as if Jessie was making much more out of this than she should.

  “I heard two sets of feet up here!” Jessie said. “And it wasn’t just your laughter I heard, Abby!”

  “It was just me,” the little girl repeated.

  Jessie spun around at Aunt Paulette. “You heard it, too, didn’t you? You heard two sets of footsteps? Two kids laughing?”

  “Oh, dear,” Aunt Paulette said, her hand to her face. “I’m not sure, Jessie. It could have just been Abby.”

  “It was just me, Mommy. I couldn’t sleep so I got up and started to play. I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  Jessie didn’t know what to say. Suddenly she felt ridiculous. Could she have been wrong? Could her anxiety over Abby’s new friend’s name have made her hear things that weren’t there?

  “Try to go to sleep now, baby,” Aunt Paulette was telling Abby, pulling the sheet up around her.

  “Yeah, Abs, go to sleep,” Jessie said in a small voice, looking away from her daughter.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  “It’s okay,” Jessie said. She looked over at the window, and walked decisively over to lock it. “Don’t open this anymore, understand? You’ll let mosquitoes and moths in. Okay, Abs? Promise?”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “Come on, honey,” Aunt Paulette said, gently guiding Jessie out of the room, switching off the light behind her and shutting the door.

  THIRTY

  Detective Wolfowitz plopped himself down in the chair in front of Chief Belinda Walters’s desk.

  “You know, Wolfie, John Manning is perhaps the most admired author in the country,” the chief said, leaning back in her chair, her strong jaw clenched firm. “And he donates huge portions of his profits to hundreds of charities. Cancer, AIDS, scholarship programs for underprivileged kids.” She paused. “The Policemen’s Benevolent Association.”

  “I don’t care if he’s Jesus, I still think he had something to do with that girl’s death.”

  Wolfie folded his arms across his chest. He missed the days when Joe Martin had sat in the chief ’s chair. He never felt right reporting to a woman. How Belinda Walters had gotten the promotion and not Wolfie, he’d never understand.

  “I’m not telling you to call off your investigation,” Walters said, sitting back in her chair. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, with a square face and iron-gray hair cut in a pageboy style. “I’m just telling you that you’re going to have to find some indisputable evidence before going public with any kind of accusation, because the man has a lot of friends in high places.”

  “Come on, B’lin. You were just as skeptical as I was when he claimed not to see his wife take that tumble off the deck.”

  “Skepticism needs to be matched up with hard evidence. We never found any.”

  Wolfie unfolded his arms and reached across Walters’s desk, slapping the stapled papers he had placed there. “How do you explain this?” he barked.

  “I can’t,” she said, glancing down at the sheets of paper. “But neither do these hold any proof that Manning murdered the German girl.”

  Wolfie snatched up the papers and read from them. “Confidential report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Suspect Emil Deetz cornered in house with [names redacted] by Mexican drug police at intersection of Vial Juan Gabriel and Niños Heroes. Massive shoot-out, six dead, including suspect.”

  Walters nodded. “You didn’t need the FBI report for that, Wolfie. That much was reported in the Sayer’s Brook Crier.”

  He turned over a page of the report. “Large crowds gathered around the building prior to, during, and following the shoot-out. Identified was bestselling American author [name redacted.]” Wolfie threw the papers back onto Walters’s desk. “I can fill in the blank.”

  “Oh, really? Let’s see. Bestselling American author? That could be John Grisham, or Stephen King, or Anne Rice, or Stephenie Meyer, or Dan Brown, or Patricia Cornwell, or—”

  “None of those people also keep a dossier on Emil Deetz in their private files.”

  “How do you know?”

  Wolfie could feel himself getting hot under his collar. “None of them subsequently then went and bought property right next door to Emil Deetz’s former girlfriend.”

  Walters just sighed.

  “He was there when Deetz was killed! Why was he in Mexico?”

  “Lots of people go to Mexico.”

  “Ciudad Juarez isn’t Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco. It’s the most violent place in Mexico, riddled with drug violence.”

  “Manning’s a writer. Maybe he was gathering information.”

  “He writes about vampires and werewolves and sexy male witches.” Wolfie grunted, remembering the nights when his ex-wife stayed up so late at night reading that trash, keeping him from falling asleep.

  “Look, Wolfie,” the chief said, leaning toward him. “I agreed to let you pursue this because I, too, want to know why Manning kept a dossier on the Deetz case. He wasn’t even living in Sayer’s Brook then. But you’re a better detective than to sit there and start making all sorts of presumptions without gathering all the information first.” She leaned back in her chair. “At least, you u
sed to be a better detective than that.”

  He frowned. “I’m not making presumptions. I’m asking questions. And don’t worry, I’ve requested the FBI review its classified information and consider revealing the names it redacted in the report, for law enforcement purposes.”

  “Well, that’s a first step.”

  “But come on, B’lin. You know what this smells like. You were a good detective, too, once. Sometimes puzzles just suddenly fit into place even before you find all the pieces.”

  “I’m just telling you to dot your i’s and cross your t’s, Wolfie.”

  “I mean, don’t you just have to wonder why, after seeing Deetz get shot to death in Mexico, Manning comes to Sayer’s Brook and makes Monica Bennett an offer on a piece of family property that wasn’t even for sale?”

  “He’s said in interviews that he liked the town.”

  “But there were other properties that were for sale. Why buy a chunk of the old Clarkson estate?”

  “He liked the brook. He liked Hickory Dell.”

  “Or maybe he knew where Emil Deetz had stashed his cash, or his drugs, or whatever it was that he stashed out there before he fled.”

  Chief Walters sighed again. “Wolfie, we went all over that property for weeks. Metal detectors, bloodhounds. We found nothing.”

  “Doesn’t mean something wasn’t there, hidden really deep down.”

  She made a sound of dismissal through pursed lips. “I think you’re reaching now.”

  “But I can keep looking into it?”

  The chief nodded. “Yes. Just don’t write your final report until you’ve done all your homework ahead of time.” She lifted the papers from her desk and slipped them into a drawer. “Have you asked Manning yet why he had the dossier on Deetz?”

  “Not yet. I don’t want him to know quite so soon that I’ve discovered that little factoid about him. I want to ask him about it when I have more information to throw at him, like confirmation from the FBI that he was indeed in Mexico when Deetz was killed.”

  “Now, that’s spoken like a good detective.” The chief stood. “Thanks for the update, Wolfie.”

  He stood and gave her a little salute in jest.

  Wolfie left the chief’s office. He’d show her. He’d prove that not only had John Manning been involved in Deetz’s crimes, but that he had killed the German girl as well. Maybe she’d stumbled onto something that connected him to Jessie’s ex-boyfriend while she was at the house.