What Doesn’t Kill Her

by Max Allan Collins

  The sodomite’s computer with the damning evidence lies at the bottom of the Cuyahoga, next to his cell phone. The eye, the eye that lured him into sinful practices with other men, I burned in the incinerator in the basement. It will offend God no more.

  Can there be any doubt that God is my copilot when He sends that foolish boy Pryor to my door? I returned at the very moment that the young detective put the pieces together, but now he is in pieces. Still, this was a lesson for me to learn: time for Traynor to disappear, for Mentor to exist briefly like a flickering flame, and then a new identity, half a continent away, will begin schooling anew.

  Night is descending now. Time. My time. Time to go to work. I walk down the stairs—they creak with age.

  I have the framed photo of myself in my pocket; I need to return it to the mantel.

  Outside, after exiting out back, I creep along the side of the house and peek around the corner. The two officers in the car are looking away. God’s grace, watching over me. I will deal with them later. I walk to the rear of my old house. The fool police have locked it. I unlock it. Obviously, they don’t know I’m expecting a guest.

  She will come tonight. She will come and she will finally learn the error of her ways.

  And at last my devotion to the Lord, and to her, will be rewarded, and she will be mine.

  Hallelujah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When Jordan rolled down 38th on her Vespa, she was not surprised to see a police car in front of Phillip’s house. The street was dark and quiet, and the streetlamp nearest the Traynor place was out. She cruised on by, the two uniformed officers not even glancing her way, one slumped and apparently sleeping on the job.

  So much for police protection.

  She turned at the corner, then took a left into the alley, following it all the way to the far end of the block. No cops back here. She tooled her scooter around back to Phillip’s garage and parked it in the shadows against one wall, out of sight.

  Behind the old, well-maintained two-story house, the only sounds were a rustle of wind in trees and the rumble of distant traffic. She crept up the narrow sidewalk to the back of the house. The lights were all out, no sounds from within.

  There wouldn’t be—Phillip Traynor was gone, either a murderer on the run or the victim of one. David considered the latter a feasible notion, but Jordan was convinced Phillip was her intruder. She hadn’t recognized him, thanks to a little hair dye, contact lenses, and that damaged face. She smiled. Someone else had given him his own medicine, in one instance anyway.

  She would do much better.

  In her left hand was a small flashlight, in her right the mugger’s commandeered switchblade, but before she used it, she would break as many of his bones as her homemade martial arts training would allow. He was old. She was young. She would prevail.

  Not that there was much if any chance he’d still be inside this house. This was merely where she would begin. The police had searched the place, and boxed up and carted off anything they thought might be evidence. But they might have missed something, and anyway, she knew Phillip, or at least the construct of Phillip that the madman had presented, and she might see something, understand something, that the police had missed on their first pass.

  Phillip would not be easy to find, and it would be a challenge to get to him before the cops did. Her next stop would be Dr. Hurst, to find out what the psychologist knew about her fellow support group member. Hurst wouldn’t want to cooperate at first, but Jordan had the leverage of Levi’s death, and that this one twisted creature calling himself Phillip Traynor had single-handedly performed half of the violent crimes visited upon that entire support group of hers.

  Of course, Phillip might be in the wind—might already be long gone from Cleveland, and yet… he had kept the city his home base through a decade of serial killing, and likely had gone through a succession of identities. That missing coach, Bradley Slavens, was surely one of them. Mark had been close. So very close.

  If she was right—if this madman was an eccentric who considered Cleveland his personal killing grounds—then she might be able to get to him before the cops. She would have to be resourceful and clever, because in a matter of days, probably two at most, the juggernaut of CPD and FBI and the attendant media frenzy would roll over her and all her dark hopes, all her violent dreams.

  Strips of yellow crime scene tape covered the screen door in back. She yanked them off, discarded them like a child unwrapping a present. The screen door was unlocked and, surprisingly, so was the inner door. The cops seemed to have a naive notion of the ability of crime scene tape to keep out intruders.

  She stepped into a dark kitchen, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her. Should those officers sense somebody was in the house, she might appreciate having an escape route ready. Moonlight filtered through small windows above the sink, enough to reveal the kitchen’s blankness—no appliances, no knife block, no personal items at all. She checked the cupboards. Nothing. The police had carted everything off.

  This was already looking like a wasted effort, but she pressed on. The kitchen fed into a narrow, dark hallway that led to the front of the house. Inky darkness forced Jordan to move sideways, using a hand on the wall as a guide, edging along. She did not dare use the flashlight until she had determined if the police car out front might detect its use, needing to know where walls and curtains protected her search. Down at the far end, light from outside filtered in through sheer-curtained windows.

  Finally, she reached the end of the hall and found herself in a small foyer, living room to her right, stairs to her left, kitchen hall behind her, front door straight ahead. That door, with multiple glass panes, was the curtained source of outside light. She peeked around the thin semi-sheer fabric and saw the police car parked out front. The officers sat in darkness, thanks to that burned-out streetlamp. The only significant light came from the moon.

  Why couldn’t they just drive away and leave her to her search? Did they really think their killer would return to the scene of the crime? To the home they had stripped of damn near everything?

  God, cops could be stupid. Even Mark, so many missteps.…

  She went up the nearby stairs, and they creaked under her sneakers. The natural spookiness of a dark old empty house could not be denied, and she felt uneasy going up, some goose bumps rising on her forearms, where the sweatshirt sleeves were rolled back. Couldn’t help it. She was human.

  But the upstairs, where she used the flash with care, was a nonevent. Three bedrooms and a bathroom. Only one bedroom seemed ever to have been in use, as it had a Victorian dark wood bed, a single with fancy carving and a matching nightstand. Nice braided rug, too, but otherwise nothing. No clothing in the closet. No books or photos or other personal items.

  Even the bathroom showed no signs of use, its medicine cabinet empty, no soap in the clawed tub’s dish. Had the police taken all of this stuff? Or had Phillip cleared some of it out himself? And had he really lived in a house with so many unused rooms?

  A noise from downstairs startled her. Had she been wrong? Was Phillip here? Or was that just the kind of grunt and groan you could expect from a structure of this advanced age?

  Carefully, flashlight switched off and in her left, the switchblade open and gripped tight in a fist, she went down, one step at a time, pausing to listen. Step, listen, step, listen, step, listen.…

  Nothing.

  Back downstairs, she made her way to the living room, operating only by whatever moonlight managed to infiltrate openings in the filmy curtains. Furnishings to navigate here, Victorian chairs, a matching couch, odd pieces in a sparse yet formal room. As she eased forward, she could make out dark patches on the floor, near the fireplace. Caked blood irregular and black in the moonlight—Mark’s blood. Her stomach tightened. That acrid vomity taste was at the back of her throat again.

  Forcing herself, she kept moving in the dim light. Like the kitchen, this room had been stripped of all human vestiges ot
her than the furniture.

  Skirting the blood, she looked at the fireplace, with its carved ornate wood trim and bare mantel. No knickknacks or framed photos, but wait… there was something, something the police had overlooked or that had just gotten accidentally left behind. One framed photo, small, not even three by five, facedown on the mantel. Easy to miss.

  She took it and held it in the moonlight, and within the little gold-leaf picture frame was a face she knew very well. She knew it because she saw it every night before sleep took her, and she saw it every day when she went to the refrigerator for a bite or a drink, her colored-pencil drawing of the face held to its door by a magnet.

  The face of the intruder.

  The monster who had slain her family.

  And she could see it now, see Phillip in the photograph, looking past the handsome face in the frame into the ravaged face from group, because (for one thing) the eyes, never mind the color, were the same. She should have seen that all along, but now she did, and now she had him.

  Maybe she would lose him to the police, but now at least she could point to this picture and say this is him, this is the killer, the rapist, the man who played victim as Phillip, the madman who had murdered Levi, and who undoubtedly struck Mark down right here, when he made the same discovery.

  A noise behind her made her turn quickly, and she had the knife tight in her hand. Her night vision was good, and the moonlight helped, too; but she lightsabered the flashlight around anyway.

  Nothing.

  Was Phillip here? Would he be waiting for her, in that hallway, when she stepped from the living room into the foyer? Was he crazy enough to stick around, lunatic enough to return?

  Of course he was. She had so often thought of him as a madman—how could she question it?

  And if the police had emptied every fucking item from the cupboards and the medicine cabinet, how could they miss this picture? Or had Phillip returned, and left it for her to find? To taunt her!

  She moved slowly across the living room, thinking, If I scream, those cops will come.

  But her scream might summon the intruder, only… she was the intruder. She was in his home. And on his turf. Where her cry for help might send him not scurrying away but toward her, and she might be dead, and he might be gone, before help could come.

  She crept forward as she had coming down the stairs, taking a step, listening, taking a step, listening, taking a step, listening.

  And when she reached the open space leading from living room to hall, she moved fast and low, in a crouch, knife poised to defend or attack as need be, the flashlight slashing the darkness…

  … and revealing nothing but an empty hall and a similarly empty stairway nearby.

  On her way back to the kitchen, she found the door to the basement, but by now she was rattled enough to think, Fuck that shit, and she just got the hell out of there. She wanted this bastard, but she was not going down into the dark, dank basement of the madman’s house looking for him.

  As she rode on the Vespa back to her apartment, the framed photo in one pocket of her jeans, the switchblade in the other, she argued with herself, logic and emotion rolling around inside her like a couple of sumo wrestlers, each too strong to do the other any damage.

  Should she call the cops and tell them about the photo? If she did, she would be abdicating her role as avenger, and admitting that the police were better qualified and more likely to find and stop this bastard, and soon. Being alone in that psychopath’s house, skirting the black, dried blood that had been inside Mark, had scared the shit out of her.

  But today she had promised Mark, as she had promised herself long ago, that she would kill this evil creature, and she still wanted that, very much. She also wanted to stay alive and to start over with Mark. Yet just as much she wanted to see Phillip Traynor, or whoever the fuck he really was, stopped, and stop him herself. Finally, though, she had a responsibility, to other potential victims out there, to put aside her thirst for revenge, and make do with justice.

  When she rolled past the police car parked in front of her apartment house—these two were at least awake, and one noticed her and gave her a tip-of-the-cap salute—she considered stopping to talk to them. Giving them the framed photo she’d found. That she gave this consideration represented the considerable journey she’d taken from Phillip’s house to her place—when she’d left, she’d not even considered dealing with this with the two cops on watch outside there.

  Inside her apartment, she tossed the framed photo with a clunk onto the black-topped table. She got out of her sweatshirt and jeans and panties, tossing them near the mattress, and went in the bathroom and took a shower, a long warm one, soaping every square inch of her body and trying to let the steamy warmth relieve the tenseness of her muscles. She didn’t think about anything except how good it felt, but when she toweled off, her warring thoughts kicked back in, and then, finally, she knew what she needed to do.

  She slipped into some gray sweats and got her cell from her wadded jeans. She sat on the edge of the floor-bound mattress, her knees high. Captain Kelley had given her his cell number and she called it.

  She asked, “Anything new on Mark’s condition?”

  “Nothing’s changed. Early yet.”

  She told him about going to Phillip’s and of the photo she’d found.

  “You got any idea,” he said, his voice cold, “how stupid that was, going over there, entering a crime scene like that, this asshole on the loose?”

  “Pretty stupid, I guess. Goddamn stupid?”

  “Goddamn stupid is right. How the hell did you get in?”

  “The back door was open.”

  “… No, they locked up. There’s no way in hell they didn’t lock up.”

  Her voice was as calm as a grade school teacher telling her class it was time for recess. “Okay. So Phillip’s still around. He went in, left that photo for me to find, and left the door unlocked to make sure I could find it.”

  “Why did he want you to find it?”

  “He’s fucking with me. What do you think? Captain, he’s fucking with all of us.”

  “I want that photo.”

  “You can have it.”

  “I’ll have one of the officers keeping watch come gather it. I’m going to circulate it immediately and see who recognizes him.”

  “You’ll come up with several names, and one of them will be Bradley Slavens.”

  There was a nod in his voice. “The gymnastics coach who dropped off the grid. Man, Mark really did crack this thing.”

  “He did. Do me one favor?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell him you’re proud of him, when he wakes up.”

  She ended the call.

  She was opening the refrigerator to get herself a can of apple juice when the buzzer downstairs sounded. She returned the buzz, then went to the door, and had a sudden thought—who the hell had she just buzzed in?

  This was no time to let her guard down, but when her doorbell rang, she looked out the peephole and saw the cap of a uniformed officer. She opened the door, just as her father had once opened the door for a cop, and Phillip Traynor looked up at her from under the black bill of the blue cap and his lipless smile was at its hideous worst.

  He shoved her back, and she almost lost her balance as he slammed the door behind him. Then, in that way of his that inserted ragged breaths here and there, he asked, “Do you like my picture? I left it there for you.”

  He tossed the cap away. He wore a police uniform, though its blouse had a splotchy look, like a garment that had been hastily cleaned in a restaurant restroom after food had been spilled.

  He saw her frowning, trying to put it together, and said, “I appropriated this from one of the officers in front of my house. They were already disposed of when you arrived, which you’d have noticed had you taken a closer look… but of course I knew you wouldn’t. The officers out front, here? Those gentlemen I just took care of.”

  “You’re a monster
.”

  “I perform monstrous deeds at times, but I have a good heart. I think you sensed that, didn’t you? In Phillip? You and Phillip hit it off well, I thought.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “I’m known by many names. I am one of God’s avenging angels.”

  “You’re fucking nuts is what you are.”

  She backed off farther, as he made himself at home, strolling around, taking the place in. That he was dressed as a cop made it seem like he was looking for evidence.

  “Simple, unpretentious,” he said. “I like that. God’s servants don’t require worldly things.… You drew my picture!” He had paused at the refrigerator. “I knew you cared. I knew beneath the hurt and rage… that you cared.”

  “I care.”

  He gestured toward the pencil portrait, his smile a terrible rip in the ravaged face. “I was handsome, wasn’t I? As handsome as you are beautiful. But you know what they say about beauty.”

  She took a quick step toward him, planted and pivoted, left leg coming around to deliver a solid blow, but Phillip was ready. He grabbed her by the ankle and knee and flipped her to the floor, hard, on her stomach, a belly flop without a swimming pool. She rolled, then swung her leg around and took his feet out from under him, and now he hit hard, on his back. She landed with an elbow in his stomach that sent air whooshing from him, his face contorting as best as its tight skin would allow.

  Then she was straddling him and her hands were on his throat and she was choking and choking and choking and his face was turning red, redder, reddest, and she was grinning, drinking in his pain, but somehow he brought his legs up and caught her head between his knees and yanked her back, tore her grip free. He was damn near double-jointed! And then she remembered, how fucking stupid of her—he’d been a gymnast.

  He was on his side, with her neck between his knees, not squeezing, just holding her there, and she flailed with small sharp fists, kicking with the soles of her bare feet, landing blows anywhere she could, until their force and frequency caused him to use his legs to fling her away. She lay in a pile of discarded limbs as he strode over and picked her up and threw her against the wall, like a piece of furniture he was trying to break. She felt a rib snap, and slid to the floor, the pain sharpening with her every breath.