The Darker Side sb-3

by Cody McFadyen

  The trees were incredible, either evergreen or with leaves on the turn, short and tall, young and old. It was cold, cold like it is here, and I remember the bite of it on my cheeks, my breath in the air.

  "Not only do I have to pee in the woods," my mother had groused,

  "but I have to get goose bumps on my ass while I do it."

  "Isn't it beautiful, though?" my dad had said, a little bit of awe in his voice, oblivious to her anger.

  That was one of the things I loved about my dad. He was eternally young when it came to viewing the world. My mom was more careful. Like me, she had a cynical edge. Mom kept our feet on the ground, which was important, but Dad kept our heads in the clouds, which had its own value.

  I remember her turning to look at him, ready with some smart quip that died on her lips when she saw the actual joy on his face. She'd pushed her grumbling away and turned to look as well, finally seeing what he was seeing, getting infected with his wonder, stumbling into his dream.

  "It is," she'd marveled. "It really is."

  "Can I explore?" I'd asked.

  "Sure, honey," Dad had replied. "But not too far. Stay close."

  "Okay, Daddy," I'd agreed and had bounded off, heading into the trees.

  I'd kept my word and stayed close. I didn't need to go far; fifty steps and I had found myself alone, more alone than I'd ever been. I'd stopped to take this in, not so much afraid as interested. I'd arrived in a small clearing, surrounded by a number of tall trees with dying leaves that hadn't given up the ghost just yet. I'd spread my arms and tilted my head all the way back and closed my eyes and listened to the stillness and the silence.

  Years later I'd find the body of a young woman in the woods of Angeles Crest and remember that stillness and silence and wonder what it was like to be killed in the middle of nowhere, to have that solitude as a cathedral for your screams.

  I was ten years old on that trip to New York, and it was the last trip we took before my mom got sick. When I think of my parents, I always think of them then, at that age, just thirty and thirty-one, younger than I am now. When I think of being young, I remember those trips we took, I-spy and pididdle and are-we-there-yet and my mother's complaints. I remember my father's wonder, my mother's love for him, and I remember the leaves and the trees and the time when stillness held beauty instead of the memories of death. LISA'S CONDO IS NEW CONSTRUCTION, located near the center of Alexandria. The buildings are nice, but don't really fit their surrounds.

  "Kind of like California in Virginia," Alan observes, putting voice to my thoughts.

  The condo is brown wood and stucco on the outside, with its own small driveway. No one has entered yet; there's no yellow crime scene tape on the door. We pull in, exit, and walk up to the front door. Alan will clear the condo with me before leaving to go chase up on witnesses. We'd swung by the morgue so I could grab Lisa's keys. I am fiddling with them in the bad light from the streetlamps to find the one we need.

  "Probably that one," Alan notes, indicating a gold-colored key. I fit the key into the deadbolt lock and it turns with a click. I put the key ring into my jacket pocket and we both pull our weapons.

  "Ladies first," Alan says.

  THE CONDO HAS TWO BEDROOMS, one of which doubles as a home office. We clear these as well as the guest half-bath and the master bathroom before holstering our guns.

  "Nice place," Alan observes.

  "Yeah."

  It's decorated in earth tones, muted without being bland. Catches of color appear throughout, from maroon throw pillows on the couch to white cotton curtains with blue flower trim along the edges. It's clean and odorless, no smell of pets or dirty clothes or food left out. She didn't smoke. The wooden coffee table facing the couch is covered in a happy disarray of magazines and books. Lisa was tidy but not fastidious.

  "Okay if I go?" he asks.

  I glance at my watch. It's now 5:00 A.M.

  "Sure. Before you get on to chasing down witnesses or following the money, get a search going for murders with a similar signature."

  "The cross, you mean?"

  "The cross, or just the symbols he left on the cross. I don't think we're going to find any really old crimes, but we might find some new ones."

  He frowns. "You think he's been operating for a while and only just decided to come out into the open?"

  "I do."

  "Bad idea on his part."

  "Let's hope so."

  ALONE NOW. I LEAVE THE lights off. The dawn has arrived and I want to see the living room as Lisa would have seen it. I sit down on the couch, brown microfiber, a couch like a thousand others, except that this one had been hers. She'd sat here, time after time. I'm able to pick out her favored spot, a cushion that's just a little bit more worn than the others.

  A medium-sized flat-screen TV faces the couch, placed a comfortable distance away. I imagine her sitting here, lights out, shadows dancing on her face. I see a bottle of nail polish on the coffee table and smile. Watching TV while painting her nails. I find a book on a side table, a silly romance novel. Guilty pleasures, maybe reading while her toenails dried.

  This place was a sanctum, a refuge, and I'm going to root through it with impunity. I reflect that in this way, I'm very like the killers I hunt. I will move through this home and open her drawers, read her e-mail, peer into her medicine cabinet. Cross all boundaries of privacy until there's nothing left to find.

  Once upon a time, Lisa could turn the lock and keep the world outside from finding out her secrets, but not anymore. The killers I hunt are empowered by this concept.

  My motives are purer, obviously, but I learned a long time ago that I won't survive doing what I do if I am dishonest with myself, and the truth is, I feel just a little hint of that power when I go through a victim's home, the slightest thrill of the voyeur. I can look where I want, touch what I want, open any door I want. It's heady and I can understand, just a little, why it has such a draw for psychopaths. I get up and move into the kitchen. It's small but functional and very clean. Brown granite countertops. Stainless steel refrigerator with matching over-the-counter microwave, stove, and dishwasher. I open a few cabinets and peer inside. White china, neatly stacked. The refrigerator is nearly bare. I see a note/shopping list posted on the refrigerator door. It says, Need bottled water, napkins, mac and cheese. Never going to happen now, I think.

  The kitchen drawers reveal nothing. Silverware, a phone book, some pens and Post-its. I'm not really surprised. Lisa was someone used to having to hide in public. She wouldn't keep her secrets out here where a guest could find them by accident.

  I move to the bedroom. It's medium-sized, with a lush beige carpet. The bed dominates the room, a California king. The earth tones continue here. Lisa had found her own sweet spot in terms of decor; feminine without being girly.

  I move to the common repository of secrets for women: the nightstand. I open the top drawer and am not disappointed. There's a plastic bag of marijuana with some rolling papers. I also see some baby oil and a magazine filled with photographs of well-muscled naked men. I glance around, note the CD player.

  I can imagine Lisa, putting on a CD, lighting up a joint and inhaling while she flipped through the pages of the magazine to find the right visual spark. Finding it, lying back, grabbing the baby oil . . . And that's where we part ways, Lisa.

  My fingers, when they travel down there, arrive at a different tactile experience. I've never had a penis, never wanted one, but I've held them in my hands. I know what they feel like, smell like, taste like, but I don't know what it's like to hold one and feel it being touched at the same time.

  Did that bother you? You were attracted to men, you longed to be a woman. When your hand found a penis, was it alien? Did you transform it in your fantasies to something else?

  I strain to arrive there, to feel it as she would have felt it, but the experience eludes me.

  I close the drawer and open the one below it, find only some paperbacks.

  I move to
her dresser and rummage through the drawers. I could be looking through my own. There are no male items here at all. Bras, panties, some T-shirts and jeans. The closet reveals the same, a mix of dresses, slacks, and a ton of shoes. She had good taste, just to the left of classy, a muted flair. Hinting at mischief without giving away the store.

  I leave the room and enter the bathroom next to it. Again, I'm struck by the fact: this is a woman's place. Makeup, loofah, lavenderscented soap. Bath beads, pink razors, a hand cream dispenser. Even the toilet seat is down. Did she sit to pee, or stand?

  The medicine cabinet belongs to a healthy person. I see aspirin, bandages, the basics. No antidepressants or prescription painkillers. In fact, no medication of any kind, which puzzles me until I work it out. She would have taken her medication with her on her trip to Texas.

  The area under the sink provides another contrast. No tampons there in that easy-to-reach-while-sitting-on-the-toilet position. Just a hand cloth and some tile cleaner.

  There's a digital scale on the floor, and I step onto it out of habit, still trying to be Lisa. I ignore its lies, as I imagine she would have. A last pause and look around and I leave the bathroom to go check out her home office.

  The office is decorated in the same earth tones as the rest of the condo. There's a desk placed under the window. She'd have been able to look outside when she felt like it, but her flat-screen computer monitor would have been protected from the sun's glare. The desk itself is made of dark wood, neither substantial nor rickety, something in between. Lisa liked wood, I think. I've seen very little metal in the furniture here.

  There's a file cabinet next to the desk. A six-foot high bookshelf leans up against an opposing wall, more dark wood. I glance at the titles on the book spines. They're almost all travel guides with a gay/

  lesbian emphasis. Gay Travel in Italy, Madrid--Simply Fabulous, stuff like that.

  A check of the file cabinet reveals nothing of immediate interest. We'll have to go through it all, but that's not why I'm here right now. I'm looking for something, anything, that jumps out, that could help put us on the right path.

  I examine the desktop. It's clean, just a slate cup-coaster and a pen. I close my eyes, try to imagine her morning routine. I slip off my shoes, because that's how she'd have walked around in here, that's why she had these plush carpets.

  I imagine her waking up, walking to the coffeepot, pouring a hot cup of coffee and heading over to sit, bleary-eyed, in front of the computer . . .

  No, that's wrong.

  There had been a crucial difference between Lisa and me. When I wake up in the morning, my hair might be a mess, I may have bags under my eyes, I might even think I need to wax my upper lip, but I never have to worry about someone coming to the door unannounced and finding out I'm not a woman. Lisa would have had that worry, a constant concern. I close my eyes, and retrace my mental steps.

  I imagine her waking up. First stop would have been the bathroom. Shower, shave her legs if needed, brush her teeth. Do her hair. Do her makeup--nothing fancy, just making sure that it is a woman's face looking back at her. We're all slaves to the mirror in some fashion, but it would have had a whole new dimension for Lisa. Clothes could have remained casual, a T-shirt and sweatpants were fine, but she would have done her face before getting her coffee. She would have woken up and prepared for the possibility of being seen by the world.

  Now the rest of it feels true; cup of coffee, walking into this office in her bare feet.

  I sit down in the chair and start up her computer. Her wallpaper is a striking photograph of the pyramids of Egypt silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky.

  I open her browser and look through the history to see what sites she visited. It's a mix of business and shopping. I find her own website, Rainbow Travels. There's a photograph on the first page. Lisa, smiling, beautiful. I'd never know, from this picture, that she hadn't started her life as a woman.

  Pictures . . .

  I stand up, walk out of the office, and go back through the living room, the bedroom. I was right--there are no photographs on her walls. No pictures of her family, of Rosario or Dillon, or even of herself. There's a Picasso print and an Ansel Adams black and white, but that's it.

  I wonder about this. Why no photographs? Had the idea of seeing her parents' faces every day been painful to her? Or was it simply a continuation of her protecting them from her life, of keeping visitors from making the connection?

  I walk back into the office and continue going through her computer. I check out her e-mail. Lots of business e-mail, e-mail relating to online purchases, but again, the oddity--nothing personal. It's the cyberspace version of no family photos.

  I'm starting to get an idea here that belies Rosario's vision of Lisa's contentment. The condo was nice, Lisa ran her own business, she had her flat screen and her weed and baby oil and that was all great, but I think this was a place of solitude, of daily routine and loneliness. I don't see any e-mail to or from friends, any visits to dating sites, no evidence of any outreach at all.

  I sigh and lean back in the chair. I feel dissatisfied. Where is Lisa in this place? Where's her soul?

  My foot kicks against something underneath the desk. Frowning, I move the chair back, crouch forward, and pick it up. When I see what it is, my heartbeat speeds up a little.

  It's a brown leather book, embossed with the gold letters Journal on the front.

  "Now we're talking," I murmur.

  The first entry is dated about a week ago. Lisa has nice handwriting, a looping, legible script. I read. I'm not sure why I keep these journals. Maybe to record my own loneliness. I don't know.

  It helps, I guess, just to sit here every now and then and write the words: I'm lonely, I'm lonely, I'm so damn lonely. I was reading Corinthians yesterday in the Bible. I read it and started weeping. I cried and cried and cried. I couldn't help it. Here's what it said:

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always pro- tects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

  I read that and I felt for a moment like I couldn't breathe. Like I hurt so hard I'd fly apart.

  It was the question, you see, that it brought to my mind: Will I ever have someone to say those words to? Will I? Will anyone ever feel that way about me?

  Is there a man out there who's going to kiss me and find out what I am and keep kissing me anyway and forever? And if there is, will I rec- ognize him when he appears?

  I know, I know, I'm on a journey, and it's a marathon, not a sprint. But sometimes, I doubt. I doubt myself, I doubt my decisions. Some- times, I'm ashamed to say, I even doubt God. How could I doubt God? God is the only one who's always been there for me.

  I'm sorry, God.

  Sometimes I just get so damn lonely.

  I finish this passage and clear my throat. I move to the next, written two days after the first one. Nana's dead. No surprise, but still, it hurts. Nana was a racist, Nana wouldn't have accepted me the way I am now, but I loved her anyway, I just can't help it. After all, Nana always kept my secret. THE secret. She kept on loving me even after that terrible thing I did, the most shameful act I ever committed, when I frown. It ends there. I run a finger along the inside and realize that pages of the journal have been removed, ripped out. I flip through the later pages.

  Then I see it.

  And I freeze.

  My hands tremble a little bit as I open the journal wider to look, to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

  At the top of one page, a hand-drawn symbol.

  A skull and crossbones.

  Below that, a single line:

  What do I collect? That's the question, and that's the key. Answer it soon, or more will die.

  I drop the journal onto the desktop. My heart is racing. Him. He'd been here. The man on the
plane.

  The man who killed Lisa.

  Alan phrases it as a statement, and not a happy one.

  "And he's set a clock. Catch me or I kill again."

  The moment I know, for certain, that a killer is serial, everything stops. It's a moment of total silence, an indrawn breath. The earth stops rotating and a low hum fills my head and thrums through my veins.

  It's a terrible pause, a necessary minute where I accept the burden of my profession: until I catch him (or her or them), the killing rolls on. Anyone who dies now is my responsibility.

  It's one thing to know that they don't stop until we catch them. It's another thing entirely for them to say outright that they're already homing in on the next victim. A whole different level of pressure.

  "Fuck." He sighs. "I sure get tired of these guys. Don't they know they'll never be original?"

  "It's always new to them."

  "Yeah. What do you want to do?"

  I'd called Alan first, without really giving it too much thought. I'd needed to talk to someone, to tell them what I'd found. The shock of adrenaline is fading now.

  "What are you working on?" I ask.

  "He used a credit card to buy his plane ticket. It's a valid card, turns out it was issued a few years ago. I got an address and I'm headed over there now."

  My heart sinks.

  "What was the name on the card?"

  "Richard Ambrose."

  "The real Ambrose, whoever he was, is dead, Alan."

  "Yeah."

  If our perp had manufactured this identity from whole cloth, the credit card would have been issued recently.

  "He probably found a guy that came close to his own physical description," I muse. "That will help, at least."

  "You want me to continue with what I'm doing, or come to you?"

  "Get over to Ambrose's place. I'm fine here. It was just a shock."