Embryo 2: Crosshairs

by JA Schneider

  “Why would you want to go anyway?” he asked.

  “I dunno.” A shrug. “Just to see it. Maybe the cops missed something.”

  “The cops missed something?”

  “I dunno! The feeling’s pulling at me.”

  He chewed on his lower lip, in that way he had when he was concentrating. “Jill,” he asked sweetly. “How do you get these great and dangerous ideas? Do you practice?”

  “It’s this compulsion I have. Very hard to control. Do I need medication for that?”

  “Maybe not.” His eyes had moved to the small table for two next to them. It was unoccupied. Dinner menus lay across both plates.

  He reached for both menus, and laid them in front of him. “Oh look,” he said. “Today’s specialties.”

  “Huh?” Jill blinked at them. Right, there they were: the Today’s Specialties separate pages she’d seen when they came in, paper-clipped to the front of each menu.

  She watched as he removed both paper clips, placed each page inside its menu, and returned the menus to the other table.

  “Nice big ones,” he said, fingering the paper clips. Then grasped the tip of one, pulled, opened, and started to bend it.

  He gave her a little grin. “Wanna learn how to pick a lock?” he said.

  Jill’s jaw dropped. She leaned close. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “Part of that jerk phase I went through. Hope this works. It’s been a while…”

  33

  No security, no cameras, nothing, the cops had said.

  The outside door was unlocked – good – but the door connecting the vestibule with inside was locked. David made quick work of it, though, muttering about what cheap old hardware it was. Half of New York lived in buildings like this.

  A narrow, dingy foyer led to a worn-linoleum stairwell. “K. Doyle, 3D,” the nameplate in the vestibule had read. Kassie lived on the third floor, in the back.

  They climbed quietly up the dimly lit stairs, then walked a short, shabby hall. Televisions sounded from behind every door. Outside 3D, they stopped and listened.

  Nothing. Quiet as death in there. Jill had been right: the yellow tape was cut and half peeled away, as if forensics had said, Okay we’re done here, and rushed to the next case.

  But wasn’t it ugly for the neighbors? Didn’t anyone stop to peel the rest off? Jill was astonished at the indifference…or maybe neighbors thought they shouldn’t? Who knew?

  David inserted his straightened paper clips with the little hook at the end. “Push it through as far as it will go,” he said softly. “Then pull it back slowly, feeling the pins and tumblers. This is called raking.” He had brought a paper napkin to wrap around his left hand; had the clips in his right hand.

  “Seriously, when did you learn this?” Jill asked.

  “The year my parents sent me to Israel to straighten out. I was too young for the Army but they let me do target practice with them; also caught me teaching local kids how to pick locks. That wasn’t appreciated. They sent me back.”

  His left hand gave a final twist to the knob, and the door opened into hot, dark mustiness. Jill groped for a wall switch, and turned it on. They shut the door and looked around.

  “Wow,” David said quietly. The room was trashed. Everything on the floor, throw pillows and couch slashed open, an overturned armchair. On the frayed rug, a soaked area of blood where the rape had occurred.

  They both stared at the blood for a long, sickened moment. Then looked around, their faces slack. Chalky fingerprint dust covered everything, and made the room ghostly.

  “Should we have brought gloves?” Jill asked nervously, suddenly having second thoughts about this.

  “Nah, it’s been gone over.”

  They moved into the room. The coffee table before the couch was broken, tilting sharply on three remaining legs. On the floor inches away, its missing leg lay splintered and dusted.

  David said, “Look at the distance between the bloodstain and the coffee table.”

  “I see it,” Jill said, feeling nauseated as she saw too HI J on Kassie’s belly. This is where it happened. “Kassie’s forehead hit the table as the guy pushed her down from behind. But no laceration to the back of her head, which means he didn’t bring his pet cement block. Maybe he hadn’t intended to attack her?”

  “Maybe. She knew him, let him in unsuspecting. Then the fight happened, so he used her...”

  “As more mail to us.” Jill felt a second wave of fear and nausea. Saw the attack happening and keep happening; tried to push the image away. No luck. TVs laughed and screeched through Kassie’s walls, increasing the feeling of cruelty, unreality. Jill’s legs felt heavy.

  They moved gingerly through the mess. Numbly, Jill straightened a picture frame. In it, a too-sweet embroidery of a fairy tale cottage with colored, lollypop flowers behind a picket fence. On the lower right was inscribed “A Kassie Original.”

  Jill sighed. “She loved crafts.”

  David looked at it. “Sad,” he said.

  The front room gave directly onto a tiny kitchen and, next to it, a bedroom barely big enough to fit the bed.

  “That’s odd,” Jill said, peering into it.

  “What?”

  “The living room is trashed and the bedroom looks untouched.”

  They went to inspect. The bed was neatly made, its pillows lined with pretty, hand-crocheted throw pillows and sweet, childlike stuffed toys. On an old dresser were a few photos in plastic frames, and a dime-store jewelry box holding dime-store jewelry.

  “Neat as a pin.” Jill looked around, then at David. “The attacker didn’t get to the bedroom. Remember? The cops said he panicked and scrammed.”

  “Something scared him,” David said. “Somebody coming, or maybe she screamed and he was afraid someone heard.” He paused, frowning. “What are the two main causes of crime?”

  “Money and sex?”

  “Yup. Revenge too, but that’s a bit further down the list.”

  David moved back toward the living room. Jill followed; watched him stare at the blood on Kassie’s rug.

  “Well, he didn’t come for sex,” David said. “Picture Kassie bleeding, out cold. Now he goes after what he’s really after. Until he panicked.”

  Jill thought of the dime-store jewelry box. “Money? Here?”

  “Maybe something Kassie didn’t know she had,” David said solemnly. “Or something he thought she had.” He looked back toward the little kitchen. “Let’s go look there.”

  It was narrow, dim even with the sick fluorescent on overhead. Ghostly too under layers of finger print dust.

  The stove was gas; Jill turned it on and off. Shelves held scarred pots and pans, cereal and flour boxes holding nothing but cereal and flour.

  “Don’t think the Hope Diamond’s in these,” Jill said, hoisting soup cans.

  The freezer was nearly bare. Drawers under the counter held jumbled silverware, a can opener, scissors, plastic sandwich baggies, and piles of take out menus.

  Jill shuddered. “Don’t even want to think of take out,” she said, seeing Jim Holloway bleeding again on the exam table. The rapist had gotten to Jim, too, hurt him bad. Jill’s sick feeling grew into an angry, fearful knot in her gut. She was breathing shallowly.

  “Check out this.” David peered into a broom closet.

  Inside was an uncharacteristic mess. He bent to mops, a plastic bucket, dustpan and brush, junk. Everything under print dust.

  “They sure were thorough.” David straightened to poke through an overhead shelf.

  “Detergents, sponges, Comet,” he droned, pushing things around. “Dust rags, Liquid Plummer, plastic dishwasher gloves, more…Comet…” His voice suddenly trailed, went silent.

  Jill looked up from searching a floor cabinet. “What?”

  He was reaching with his elbow straight. “This is one deep closet, but my fingers tell me…oh jeez, you’re not going to believe this.”

  He pulled out a chicken dummy.
With pink feathers, and a mean, frowny face. More like a fierce bird of prey about to pounce.

  Jill straightened, white as a sheet.

  “She must have hated it,” David said. “Pushed it way to the rear.”

  “But didn’t throw it out.” Jill stared at the thing’s glaring glass eyes. Pink feathers! “Which means…somebody gave it to her?”

  “Probably. She was sentimental, hated it but couldn’t throw out a gift. You saw her childlike toys in the bedroom. She certainly didn’t buy it.”

  David turned the chicken in his hands. “Just like your photo. Like you saw at that kids’ thing.”

  “Yes.” It came out in a whisper. Then Jill found her voice. “The woman who ran it said there had been four of them originally. Two disappeared. She thought kids had snuck off the missing two.”

  “Well, this is one of the missing two. That means there’s still another missing.” David was turning the puppet in his hands, holding it upside down and peering into its workings. “Fascinating and thoroughly creepy,” he said.

  The chicken’s bottom had a slit big enough for a hand. Grimacing, Jill reached her fingers toward it.

  “Wait.” David put it under an arm, reached for Kassie’s plastic dishwashing gloves, and put them on. Held the puppet, and pushed in a gloved hand to its head.

  “It’s got little levers to control the eyes and beak,” he said; then lunged the leering, scowling chicken at her. “Hi! I’m a psycho. You like my feathers?”

  Jill shrank back. “Don’t, it’s horrible!”

  He took his hand out, removed the gloves, and stared at the puppet. “So who gave it to Kassie? Light’s dim here, let’s go admire Mr. Chicken in the living room.”

  He propped the damned thing on the top of the broken, tilting coffee table. They just stood and stared at it. The glass eyes over the bloody rug glared back at them. Jill’s stomach rolled.

  “So some fake pal gave it to her.” Jill zipped her hoodie back up, feeling chilled. “Why?”

  “Whoever it was thought she’d like it because of those stuffed toys in her bedroom. Had no concept of ordinary sensitivity. Kassie didn’t realize her pal was a sociopath. That’s a guess…”

  “It fits.”

  David stiffened suddenly, and turned to the door. “You hear something?”

  Jill looked at him. “Besides TVs on the other sides of the walls?”

  “Something else. Listen. Over here.”

  They went and stood by the door, listening.

  The stairwell. Heavy steps moving up. Rounding the landing.

  Stopping outside the door.

  A key inserted and turned. Nothing. Silence, then frustration outside. The key turned and rattled harder.

  David motioned Jill away from the door. Pressed his back to the wall, and she did the same; watched him pull Akers’ gun from his ankle and hold it up.

  Then he yanked open the door.

  34

  Outside, terrified, stood the orderly Sandy Haig.

  “Whazzis?” he said, round-eyed, gaping at the gun.

  “We never locked the door,” David said. “You were locking yourself out.” He stepped aside. “Come in. What brings you here?”

  “I live here. Upstairs, I mean.” Haig still gaped at the gun.

  “Where upstairs?” David’s tone wasn’t subtle.

  “In…4C. Kassie found me the place. I…I…” Haig’s thin voice sounded more strangled with each word.

  “Okay, relax, have a seat.” It was an order. David pointed the gun to the overturned armchair. Jill went and heaved it upright. Haig, sickly skirting Kassie’s bloodstain, went to the chair and fell into it. Stared horrified at the blood, then peered back at David.

  “God,” he said, rubbing his knees pressed tight together. “What else can happen? This is so terrible… Oh! You’ve got that awful thing out!” He pointed to the chicken.

  “You know about it?”

  “S-someone gave it to Kassie. She hated it. Said she was going to throw it out.”

  “She didn’t. What do you mean, someone gave it to her?”

  A hard swallow. “Left it outside her door in nice wrapping with a note. ‘Special thanks to a special person.’ Something like that.” Haig looked again at the blood on the rug and flinched, looked away again.

  David had lowered his gun slightly. Changed the subject. “So you live upstairs but were coming here? Why?”

  Haig seemed so upset. Jill asked him, “Would you like a glass of water?” She was standing slightly behind where he sat.

  He turned, gave her a jerky headshake. “No. Thank you.”

  It was so hot in here. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm as he turned to answer David. “I got…a threatening phone call. Came here to hide.”

  An awful stillness took hold. Jill and David traded surprised looks. No one spoke for several moments.

  “A threatening call?” David prompted.

  A nod. “Male voice, mad, kinda muffled. Said he was gonna kill me because Kassie and I were keeping it. Keeping what?” Haig nervously cleared his throat; spoke in a stumbling rush. “This’ll sound crazy, but I started to laugh. Told him he had the wrong number. Then he called me by my name. God, he knows who I am?”

  Jill said, “Kassie’s attacker took her cell phone. Your number must have been in it.”

  Another nod. “The guy said don’t even bother calling the cops because he was calling from an untraceable phone.” Haig clutched at his chest. “Jeez, my heart’s beating so bad.”

  David studied him for a long moment. “Did the voice sound even vaguely familiar?”

  A hesitation. “Can’t be sure. It was muffled and there was traffic, but it might have been…”

  Jill stared at him, her heart thudding. HI D! HI J! rose up again from Kassie’s bloodstain, and she reeled, closed her eyes for a second.

  “It might have been that photographer guy, Raphael,” Haig told David. “I’m not sure. I just made this crazy connection…” He gestured helplessly.

  “What crazy connection?”

  Haig looked away from him. Was newly rattled, shook his head. “I…can’t say. You’ll get me fired.”

  “Try me. What you say stays in this room.”

  Haig looked back to David. His mouth corners went down. He looked as if he’d just gotten off an out of control roller coaster. “It only happened once…” He swallowed hard.

  “What did?”

  A hesitation. A heavy, long breath finally let out. “One night. I was so tired I couldn’t stand straight. Trey Raphael said, ‘Try a little of this, it’ll help.’ It was cocaine. I sniffed it and felt…like I could fly or something. Zoomed through work, but then…God, it drops you fast too. Rafe said that was the crash and he had something else that could ease that.” He swallowed. “I said no thanks. Didn’t want to get him mad, but I’ve never…done drugs. They scare me.”

  David’s sharp brain was sizing this up. “Did he say what the something else was? That could ease the crash?”

  “No. I’d already said no, and that I was scared of drugs.”

  “He didn’t mention morphine to ease the crash? Didn’t mention Kassie in any connection there?”

  “No! I told you, I’d already said no. Trey can be nice but sometimes a little scary. I didn’t want to get him mad.”

  “But he knows you’re friendly with Kassie?”

  Jill said, “Evan Blair too, right? You told me that today.”

  “Yeah. We’ve all talked during night duty.” Haig fell back in the armchair. Peeked again at the bloodstain, and dropped his brow to his hand.

  “Could it have been Blair on the phone?” David pressed.

  Haig seemed suddenly very tired, drained. “I couldn’t be sure if was either of them.” His voice had weakened to a reedy wheeze. “Maybe…somebody overheard us. Or knows that Trey has…coke, and assumed I don’t know what.”

  Jill and David exchanged glances. Haig was wiped, and didn’t seem smart enough
to make things up fast enough to keep up with David.

  Who tried another line of questioning. “So the call scared you, and you thought you’d be safe here?”

  “Yeah.” Haig slowly hunched forward and hugged himself. “If that guy has my name and number, he may know where I live too. I figured with that yellow tape on the door this is the last place he’d come back to.” Probably a dumb thing to say since the tape had been cut: a sign that the cops were done with the place. The man wasn’t that bright.

  Haig gestured despondently to the slashed couch. “I’ve slept there before. Was happy to. Kassie gave me the key because I brought her groceries and did errands for her when her back was out. Also because my sorta roommate is…kinda weird. We fought yesterday.” A pause. “It wasn’t the first time.”

  “Why is your roommate kinda weird?” David asked.

  Haig looked at Jill, then switched his gaze to David, hesitantly.

  “I broke up with my girlfriend, which was bad news because we’d been splitting the rent. So now there’s this guy’s been sleeping on my couch. He was okay at first, but lately we don’t get along.”

  “How’d you meet him? What does he do?”

  Haig was calming. His breathing had slowed. “Kassie knew him from when he was a part time orderly. Now he has a part time job in The Lion King’s prop department. Goes to auditions too. Thinks he’s going to be a big actor. What a laugh. He stinks at it.”

  “What’s his name?” David asked.

  “Jerry Kirka.” Haig put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

  David frowned. “Is Jerry coughing?”

  Haig seemed surprised. “How’d you know? He was this morning when he yelled at me about something, I don’t remember what. He has allergy bad. This time of summer, I guess.”

  Jill left where she was, went into the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and brought it to him.

  “Thanks,” he said, but again shook his head. “I just can’t. This building’s water’s a funny color. I bring Kassie bottled water. God, I wish I had the money to move.”

  The shattered coffee table offered no place; Jill put the glass on the floor by Haig’s feet. “If you change your mind,” she said sweetly, and crossed to stand next to David.