The Ashes of an Oak

by Bradbury, Chris

  Emmet cleared his throat. ‘So far, Chief we have six deaths associated with this killer, now named by the press as the Token Killer...’

  ‘Bastards,’ said the Chief.

  Emmet carried on regardless. ‘…because of his habit of taking a trophy from the scene of each murder. The victims have been Violet Dybek, aged seventy-five, who was suffocated with a towel. Fibres were found in her mouth and throat. A shoe was taken from her bedroom closet as a souvenir. Then there’s George Curtis, a fifty-two year old salesman whose body was found in a furnace in the old Tabwell building. He had been strangled. The killer had taken his heart. Robinson Taylor, a forty-eight year old dealer and addict. He had been opened up from chest to groin, his balls taken and his pinkie ring stolen, the small finger on his left hand sustaining a fracture-dislocation in the process. Jennifer Hamblett, a nineteen year old nurse, was suffocated with Saran wrap, after her eyes had been removed and taken. Charlene Astle, a twenty-three year old prostitute from Brownsville, had the back of her head caved in and the little finger of her left hand removed.’

  Emmet paused. He looked around the table and no one met his eyes.

  ‘Go on,’ said the Chief.

  Emmet bit his lip while he stared at the paperwork in front of him. ‘And finally,’ he said, ‘Mary Matto, aged forty-five, cause of death undetermined. Her headless body was found this morning by a journalist with the Bulletin after she had received an anonymous tip-off. Hence the press involvement. The story is now on the streets in a special evening copy of the Bulletin. All the deaths are covered in some detail.’

  The Chief leaned forward and placed his knotted hands on the table. His knuckles were white, his fingers red from the tension. ‘You have a leaky roof, Emmet.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Plug it up. I know the game and I accept the rules, but this is too much. Find out who did it and dock their pay accordingly.’ He shook his head. ‘Bad taste, Emmet. Bad taste.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Emmet looked across at Bob and Mike. Mike nodded imperceptibly. It said it all - I know who it is. Let them buy their drinks tonight, tomorrow they can pay the piper.

  ‘How’s Frank?’ asked the Chief.

  ‘He’s shit, Chief,’ said Emmet. ‘I thought he was going to relapse, but he took it all in and just thanked me for telling him. It’ll sink in later. Poor guy.’

  There was a hum of agreement around the table.

  The Chief turned to Milt. ‘What have you got, Milt?’

  ‘All the victims were killed elsewhere and then left at the scene, all that is except Charlene Astle who was murdered at the Community Church and left there. She presents the biggest inconsistency in that, one, she was killed at the scene and, two, the killer removed her purse and secreted it away in a drain. It was later found by Detective Wayt after he went back to the area to do another search. The killer has not stolen apart from the removal of some sort of token, as previously stated.’

  ‘What about the ring on the black guy? He already had his balls. Why the ring?’

  ‘It doesn’t fit,’ said Emmet simply. ‘Maybe it was a passer-by stole it. Maybe it was just an opportunistic crime.’

  ‘Maybe isn’t certainty,’ snapped the Chief. ‘So why the inconsistency with the Astle woman? Have you brought in a psych yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Emmet. ‘We have not.’

  ‘Well, do it,’ said the Chief. ‘Tonight. Do we know anything about the killer?’

  ‘We do,’ said Emmet. ‘He’s probably Caucasian, male, diabetic and has a harelip, on the right side of his upper lip.’ He said a silent prayer that the Chief wouldn’t ask him how he knew all that.

  ‘How do you know all that?’

  Milt withered inside. ‘Well, Chief,’ he said tentatively. ‘Have you heard of something called cheiloscopy?’

  The Chief’s voice for once rose above a level monotone and buzzed the room. ‘The thing with the lips?’ he asked enthusiastically. ‘Sure I have. It’s a bit out there at the moment, but I think we’ll take any help we can get. That’s good work, Milt. Probably not admissible, but you have to take a risk sometimes and if this can be used as part of the profile…’

  ‘Yes, Chief,’ said Milt. ‘I believe it can.’

  ‘I’m not convinced that Charlene Astle was killed by the same man.’ All eyes turned to Kelly Peters. There was a tense silence as Kelly threw her spanner into the works.

  ‘Why?’ asked the Chief.

  Kelly looked directly at the Chief. If she looked away, she knew that he would too and she wanted him to listen. ‘Because her purse was removed from the scene and then returned. It was found in a drain. My team checked that drain. There was nothing in there, so why was it returned? And how? There were cops and God knows who else all over that scene. How the hell did he get back in there to hide the purse in the drain? And then, she was killed at the scene. None of the others were. Why the change in MO?’

  The chief spread his hands. ‘Panic?’ he suggested.

  Everyone spoke in unison. ‘No.’

  The Chief smiled. ‘Seems there’s a majority on this one.’

  Emmet raised his hand. He felt like a schoolkid again. ‘Sir, the closest he has come to making a mistake was with Mrs Dybek.’ He flicked through his papers and brought the one forward that he wanted. ‘That’s how we know he’s diabetic. Mrs Dybek described to Frank how she had smelled his breath. It seems that he had invaded her home on at least two previous occasions. She had said that his breath was like chemicals. A diabetic’s breath can give off the odour of pear drops. She described his breath as foul and chemical. Diabetics are susceptible to dental problems. If he’d let his condition go on for long enough, he may have bad teeth. On top of that, we think that the reason that he didn’t remove her further from the scene was that he had some sort of diabetic crisis. All he could do was drag her out the flat and throw over the railings. He suffocated her, ate some biscuits and drank some milk because he had a low blood-sugar, then, with what energy he’d managed to claw back, he tossed her over the balcony.’ Kelly and Milt nodded their agreement. ‘His lack of control with the illness would suggest that he is newly diagnosed. The fact that he knew to stop and take a drink of milk and eat some biscuits means that he has received advice from someone, possibly a professional.’

  ‘And Mary Matto?’

  ‘We’re at her apartment block now,’ said Kelly. ‘Mary’s death is more consistent with the Token Killer and the fact that no robbery took place, her purse was found intact at the scene, suggests that she was killed by the same man who killed the first four victims.’

  ‘So the conclusions about the Astle woman are still uncertain?’

  ‘I would say so,’ said Kelly.

  The Chief looked at Milt. ‘You agree?’ He turned back to Kelly. ‘I’m asking because he’s your boss, not because you’re a woman. I don’t give a shit who tells me what so long as it isn’t bullshit. Milt?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Milt. ‘The way the other victims have died says that there is something quite personal going on. Suffocation in two of the cases, strangulation in one and you have to be pretty close up to open a man up with a knife. A blow to the head from behind means that the attacker can remain anonymous. Almost that he cannot see the face of his victim and therefore maybe doesn’t have to acknowledge the crime. There’s an element of denial...’

  ‘And cowardice,’ injected Kelly.

  ‘It becomes impersonal,’ continued Milt. ‘It doesn’t quite fit. In Mary Matto’s case, we don’t know how she has died. The head was removed, if I may say, without finesse. The wounds indicate a hurried decapitation by a toothed blade such as a saw.’

  The Chief made a note. ‘So the cause of death in the Matto case also remains uncertain. Is there any chance that this could be coincidence or a copycat?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emmet. ‘There’s a chance that it could be either of those.’

  ‘Christ almighty!’ said Steve Wayt suddenly.
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br />   He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. Tiredness was etched upon his face, in his pale skin and dark rimmed eyes.

  ‘Mary gets home from the hospital after spending the day with Frank, doesn’t even have time to change, before she’s dragged off by a lunatic and decapitated and we think that there may be a copycat out there? After what Frank’s been through, we’re going to say that?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Charlene Astle had a finger removed. This was before the press got hold of it. Mary had her head removed, again before the press got hold of it. Tomorrow,’ he said as he tapped a finger emphatically upon the table, ‘tomorrow we can expect copycats, thanks to the Bulletin. Nobody knew about all this before then. All we’re doing is creating work where there is none. It’s obvious that the Token Killer has done all this. No question.’

  The Chief raised his eyebrows and looked around the table. ‘It appears to me that the majority of evidence does indicate that we are dealing with the same person. Kelly is right to have reservations, that’s what she’s paid for. That’s what we’re all paid for. As Steve says, after tonight every lunatic from here to Poughkeepsie will want to take a piece of the action, but that’s not the case right now. Let’s lean towards the idea that one man is responsible, we have a good idea of him from Milt, but leave room for doubt. How about that?’

  There was a mumble of agreement around the table.

  ‘Fine,’ said the Chief. ‘There are inconsistencies that concern me. Why were the ring and his balls taken from the Taylor guy when no other thefts were noted? With the obvious exception.’ He nodded at Kelly. ‘Why was the shoe taken from Mrs Dybek and nothing else? The guy seems to like gruesome souvenirs. A shoe, whatever the style, is not that gruesome. Perhaps Milt could take another look at her.’

  Milt nodded. This was not a matter of choice. He’d put it at the top of the list.

  ‘Let’s tighten this thing up, people,’ said the Chief. ‘The press get nothing except through me. Is that clear?’ All nodded their agreement. He put his pen away. ‘I’m going home. You should all do the same. You look beat, the lot of you. Emmet, keep me up to date with things.’ Emmet nodded.

  The Chief grabbed his jacket and headed for the stairs.

  The room fell into silence.

  ‘I’m going home too,’ said Emmet wearily. ‘Goodnight.’

  He followed the Chief up the stairs.

  ‘Last one out,’ he shouted back, ‘turn off the light.’

  Thursday

  Chapter 20

  Frank Matto closed his front door behind him. He leaned wearily against it and allowed the silence to devour him.

  The place was dark. The corridor was a vacuum; no light, no noise, almost no air.

  At either side of it, the rooms too stood in darkness, only they were elevated from complete obscurity by the lights outside and the moonlight that created oblique shadows and distorted the familiar objects of the day.

  He dropped his case and walked slowly, slightly unsteadily, past each room until he reached the kitchen at the end. It was to him as if he was a stranger in this place. He found no comfort in the familiarity; the smells, the sounds, the carpet beneath his feet. This was someone else’s world now. It belonged to a man who had existed until that very morning, who had now drowned in the great tide that washes the shores of all our lives.

  Suddenly, he rushed to the bathroom and fell onto his knees next to the toilet. He vomited. It was only liquid. He hadn’t eaten all day, but it felt as if he was disgorging his soul; his blackened, wizened, scarred soul.

  Tears ran down his cheeks as he retched. He tried to tell himself that they were merely a by-product of the vomiting, but even as his nausea receded, his tears continued to fall until he had to concede that he was a grown man, alone on his bathroom floor, weeping for the loss of his wife.

  There was a knock at the door. It was a solid, uncompromising knock that said the owner would not soon depart. He looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty.

  He pulled himself up and looked in the mirror. He had not turned the light on. The only light that fell upon his face came through the small, frosted window halfway up the wall, above the tub. Moonlight filtered through and fell upon one side of his face. It created deep shadows where his bones lay in sharp relief. With his short hair he looked like an outcast, a prisoner on Devil’s Island, such as those in Papillion, a skull covered in tissue so thin that if the moon was illuminated only slightly more, he would become see-through, exposed for the corpse that he would one day be.

  The knocks fell more heavily.

  He turned on the tap and splashed cold water over his face. He felt hot and his eyes stung. Even the coldness of the water failed to remove the layer of sweat from his forehead and the grease from his eyes.

  Whoever it was knocked again.

  Reluctantly he dragged his tired legs to the door and opened it.

  Emmet Diehl stood leaning against the jamb.

  ‘Hello, Frank. The hospital called. Said you’d taken a hike. They were concerned for your welfare.’

  Frank stepped aside and let Emmet into the darkness. Emmet walked into the living room and helped himself to a scotch.

  ‘Are you allowed one of these yet?’ Frank nodded. Emmet poured him a drink. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  Frank sat down.

  Emmet looked about for a light and found the standard lamp. He turned it on and the room was bathed in a soft yellow light.

  He looked at Frank. The man looked thin, pale, beaten. He lit a cigarette for him and one for himself then sat down. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to lecture you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.’

  Frank looked across at his friend, his Captain, the man with whom he had shared two thirds of his life for more years than they both cared to remember. He’d seen more of him that he’d seen of Mary.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Em,’ he said. His voice was strained, as if he was talking through a throat infection. ‘If I’d stayed there I’d’ve gone crazy. I couldn’t stand that room any more. I just couldn’t stand it. And now I’m here, I feel like I don’t belong here anymore. I feel…adrift.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Emmet. ‘I really am, Frank.’

  ‘Could you tell me what happened to her, Em?’

  ‘I told you this morning, Frank.’

  ‘You told me she’d died. You told me she’d been murdered.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s all there is to say, Frank.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Frank quickly. ‘Did he do it? Did my guy do it?’

  Emmet felt his jaw tighten, as if he forbade himself to speak and fought to keep the words inside. What good would it do to tell Frank all the details? What good to pour salt upon his wounds? Death was bad enough without the particulars.

  ‘Em?’ repeated Frank. ‘Was it my guy did this?’

  Emmet relented. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he do to her?’

  ‘I’m not sure you want to know that, Frank. There are some things you shouldn’t know. You’ve just got out of hospital for Christ’s sake. Correction, you’ve just sneaked out of hospital. Don’t ask me to add to your pain.’

  ‘What did he do, Em? I’ll find out, you know I will. Everybody at the hospital, all the nurses, they went quiet whenever they saw me. I hear there’s an evening edition of the Bulletin out. You want me to read about it in there?’

  ‘Christ, no.’

  ‘So tell me. I have to know. You know I have to know…’

  ‘He cut her head off, Frank.’

  As soon as he said it, Emmet cursed himself, not because he was wrong or because he was weak, but because he was never going to win. The situation had been ripped from his hands in the storm of publication. There was no way that he could protect Frank from the outside world. It always found a way in.

  They both sunk into a rigid silence, as if time itself had frozen and remained unsure as to whether it should ever move forward again.

  So
mewhere outside, someone shouted and a car rolled by.

  In the living room lay the kind of quietness found only between bombardments, before leaving the trench, at the scene of an accident or the death of a child. It was the kind of silence that you could hold in your hands and feel the weight, the kind of silence that swallowed and regurgitated every sorrow in the room, that brought words to the edge of lips and stifled them before they could thrive.

  Frank’s breath stuttered from him. He went to stand up, then paused, his hands pressed firmly against the arms of the chair, his legs tensed, then lowered himself down again, as if he suddenly realised that he had nowhere else to go.

  ‘That was his souvenir?’ he asked. ‘Her head?’

  Emmet nodded but said nothing.

  ‘How did she die? Is that how she died? He decapitated her?’

  ‘No. We don’t think that’s how she died…’

  ‘You don’t think?’ Frank leaned forward, his head bent like a bird intent on finding the worm. ‘You don’t think that’s how she died? What does that mean, Em? Does that mean that it may be how she died? He took a girl’s eyes out while she was still alive, Em. There were scratch marks on her face from where she had fought. Nobody, not one single person, has any idea how she died? Apart from him? Him? We have no idea what he did to her before she…’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Emmet. ‘Just stop it. You’re just torturing yourself. We don’t know how she died, okay? We don’t know.’

  ‘Why? Because he has her head in his fridge or in his old brown suitcase or in a shoebox on top of his wardrobe, like Christmas presents hidden from the kids? Only this time he has a couple of eyes and some balls and a finger and a rotten fucking heart to keep it company.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ repeated Emmet softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Frank flopped back in the chair.

  ‘Tell me where things are at, Em. Tell me what we know. Tell me everything.’