by Nick Pirog
Caleb and I spent the next twenty minutes hanging Lacy’s many paintings, picture frames, posters, and wall mirror, identically to how she’d left it when her lights had gone out. The police had removed Lacy’s bed as evidence, and the Big Bird walls seemed miles from one another. Seeing as I was yet to sleep a night in my bedroom, Caleb assisted me in moving the queen-sized bed into Lacy’s room.
In the final stages of dressing the bed, I asked Caleb, “When’s the last time you talked to Kim?”
“Forty minutes ago.”
“What’s her ETA?”
“Nine, no later than ten. She has a midterm in Forensic Psych tomorrow. The teacher, Jameson, is a crackpot. Hundred multiple and like ten short essay.”
The two of us congregated in the door frame and Caleb said, “You’d never suspect a woman was murdered in this room. Where again were Jennifer’s eyes?”
I showed him.
He walked over and brushed his hand over the textured groves as a blind man might brush the cover of a new book. He said, “And they were facing out, not against the wall?”
“Right. A nail was driven through each pupil.”
He turned around with his back against the wall and slid down. He looked like he was doing a wall sit in gym class. I looked at my watch and started counting. He went for thirty seven seconds. Good, but not great. Caleb continued to stare off in the distance as if Lacy’s wall was a mere hurdle.
Finally, he cocked his head up at me and stated, “The victim’s eyes see.”
“What do you mean?”
He said the words slowly, “Jennifer’s eyes saw where the next victim would be killed.”
To say I was confused would be an understatement. I was befuddled. What in the hell was Caleb talking about, Jennifer’s eyes saw where the next victim would be killed?
He instructed me to sit how he’d been and I indulged him. As I slid down the wall, my bad quad screamed, but held. Caleb asked, “Now tell me what you see?”
I glanced around the room and Caleb said, “No, keep your head straight. Imagine your eyes are the eyes on the wall. What do you see?”
I followed his instructions and stared straight ahead. “I see the bed. I can see myself in the mirror.”
“What else do you see in the mirror?” He prodded.
“Nothing. It’s just me and Lacy’s painting.” The words hit my ear before they’d hit the air, like they’d come from someone else’s mouth. I repeated, “Lacy’s lighthouse painting.”
I pushed off the wall, “Holy shit. Jennifer’s eyes saw where the next victim would be killed. Jennifer’s eyes saw Ashley would be killed at a lighthouse.”
Caleb nodded. I detected in his eyes he knew more but wanted to let me reach my own conclusions. I thought about Ashley, the lighthouse, and her eyes.
“Ashley’s eyes were affixed to the lighthouse lens. They were watching over the water, watching the incoming boats. Ashley’s eyes saw the next victim would be killed on a boat.”
Caleb chimed in, “The eyes see where the next victim will be killed, but in relation to you. It’s Tristen versus you, remember that. Jennifer was killed in your house. Ashley in your lighthouse. Kellon in your boat.”
I recollected my encore visit to Lacy’s room when I’d been looking at myself in the mirror and the clue god had whapped me on the head. But it’d never clicked.
Caleb broke my muse, “Now we need to think about what Kellon’s eyes were seeing.”
I didn’t get an opportunity to give Kellon’s eyes any conviction. Holly ran through the door holding a walkie-talkie, the ensuing stampede on the stairway flexing Lacy’s walls like rumbling speaker boxes.
Holly panted, “This just went off. It was him. It was Tristen.”
I grabbed the walkie-talkie from her. It was silent. I pushed the talk button, “Hey coward boy. What’s your excuse? Your mommy make you breast-feed until you were sixteen? Or maybe daddy made you jack him off, that it? Your sister wanted to screw your brother over you? Am I getting warmer?” I tried a couple more taunts about his family’s incest but he didn’t bite.
Everyone was in the room now, steadying themselves for the second leg of the biathlon. Speed then accuracy.
I caught Holly’s eyes and asked, “Did he say anything?”
She nodded. “Yeah, he said, ‘Two-twenty.’ That’s it. I heard it three times, I’m sure of it, ‘Two-twenty.’”
What in the hell did two-twenty mean?
Lacy offered, “Maybe he’s going to kill the next woman at 2:20 A.M. tonight, or 2:20 P.M. tomorrow afternoon.”
I shook my head, “No the fourth woman wasn’t found until 5:30 P.M. last year.” Plus that wouldn’t help us. Tristen was trying to even the playing field. He was killing me, pun intended, and wanted a little competition. This was charity.
I looked at Caleb. He shrugged, “Got me.”
Two-twenty. Maybe they were initials. Tristen had spelled out Geoffrey’s name, and he’d rearranged his name to spell Gary Strinteer, he obviously wasn’t averse to wordplay. I didn’t know any woman with the initials BU and hit a dead end. Somewhere I knew there was a file marked two-twenty, a file I’d opened in the last couple days.
I walked out of the door and found myself staring at the door to the guest bedroom. Whap.
That was it. I’d skipped over the fourth murder in Eight in October. I’d earmarked the page so I could come back to it later. I’d earmarked page 220.
I ran out of Lacy’s room, vaulted down the stairs, and raced out to my car. I grabbed Eight in October off the backseat and slid into the front. I flipped on the reading light and found the earmarked page 220. I had an inkling why Tristen Grayer had me reading this particular passage and skipped to the final sentence on the page:
Task force member, Dr. Caitlin Dodds, said after the complete autopsy, “Ginny Farth had been dead for a substantial period of time before we found her. Time of death would be close to 10:00 P.M. on the evening of Oct. 9th.
That was it. We’d marked the hot dates the women had been found. How could I have been so asinine? This was a death ritual; same time, same day, same modus operandi. Tristen Grayer wasn’t concerned with when the women were found, the hot dates were when the women were killed.
Chapter 41
I ran back to the house and said to the awaiting assembly, “Two-twenty was page 220 of Eight in October. The fourth woman was found on October 11th at roughly 5:00 P.M. but her time of death was approximately 10:00 P.M. on the evening of October 9th.”
We all looked at the clock, it was nine-fifteen. Holly said, “Oh, my God.”
“We still have forty-five minutes. Tristen wouldn’t have called if the woman was dead.” I hit mute for a terse commercial break, we still needed to know where tonight’s murder site was? Where did Kellon’s eyes see?
I assumed Caleb had briefed them on his eye theory and said, “The last victim’s eyes were baited on a hook and slung out to sea, so think about that in terms of Tristen in relation to me.”
I looked at Caleb and could see from the look on his face he knew where. He said modestly, “The cliff you fell off. Where you drowned in the Atlantic.”
I nodded, “The east bluffs.”
I looked around, everyone was waiting for the play. “Caleb you ride with me. Fat Tim and Holly follow behind us. I want the rest of you to stay here.”
They all nodded.
Holly yelled from behind me, “I just tried Kim’s cell. She’s not answering.”
The east bluffs run for about twenty-five miles northeast on US 1. US 1 curves along the entire Atlantic coast of the eastern United States, but in Maine its treachery is unrivaled. This had greatly to do with the limited number of streetlights in the state. I think the Federal Government allocated Maine something like a thousand streetlights and they used them all up in a four-block radius of Bangor.
It was curvy and black, not ideal conditions to be zooming along at eighty-five. I nearly missed the exit for the Roque Bluffs, scr
eeching across two lanes at the last second. Caleb closed his cell phone and said, “Kim’s still not answering her phone. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Really, because I was strangely optimistic. We were driving through pitch-black going close to ninety; Kim Welding was MIA and would probably be DOA and Tristen Grayer was watching me run around like a dog chasing my tail. It all looked rather upbeat if you ask me.
We made our way through Columbia Falls and into a narrow inlet running to the Roque Bluffs. A few lane reflectors had fallen off at a sharp right turn and the Range Rover hung on the guardrail before fish-tailing back onto the road. I looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see Fat Tim finish crossing himself in Holly’s white Accord passenger seat. I guess Holly had a bit of trouble with that turn as well.
I slowed down a bit, seventy-five, and took the majority of the turns on four wheels. I hadn’t seen a streetlight in ten miles and nearly ran headlong into the Roque Bluffs sign. I pulled the Range Rover over on the side of the road, the white Accord parking directly behind me.
Caleb pulled out his phone for the fifth time and shook his head, “No luck.”
I was going to say, “It’s difficult to answer a phone when the hand your cell phone is in and your head are fifteen feet apart,” but decided on, “She probably turned it off so she could study without interruption.”
He threw me a skeptical look as the two of us hopped out of the car and walked to Holly’s Honda. I instructed them to call Caitlin if they didn’t hear from us in the next ten minutes. And by no means to leave the vehicle.
Caleb and I walked across the street, resting for a moment straddling the guardrail. I could smell the ocean, taste the ocean, and hear the ocean, but I could not for the life of me, see the ocean. And I hoped I didn’t touch the ocean. The last time I touched the ocean in this spot, I’d stopped breathing for fifteen minutes. Which a doctor once told me isn’t healthy.
I didn’t turn on the flashlight. Half the reason being I didn’t want to alert Tristen to our presence, the other half, I’d forgotten the flashlight on the kitchen table. From the guardrail to the bluff face was less than thirty feet in some places and as much as seventy in others. From the cliffs to the water was about a twenty foot splash if the tide was in and about a forty foot smack if the tide was out. The rocks jutted out on both sides and converged without touching, resembling something of a horseshoe. I had my apparent brush with death halfway down the left side of the horseshoe and that’s where Caleb and I were headed.
We reached the rocks at the edge of the bluffs and stared down. I knew there was water down there but I still couldn’t see it. Caleb sidled up next to me and whispered, “How far down is it?”
“About twenty feet. We have to get down there. I can sense Tristen’s presence. He’s down there. I’m sure of it.”
“So what do you want to do? He’ll hear us climbing down and that could take five minutes.”
More like half an hour. Plus, the prospect of the two of us climbing down the rock ravine without falling into the lagoon was about as likely as Michael Jackson landing a day care license. I enlightened him, “We have to jump.”
“Hell, no.”
I guess we both knew where Caleb stood on the jumping issue. I patted him on the back, “So you’re in. Good. We go on three.”
Caleb came to terms with the issue quickly, “What if he has a gun?”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’ll have an ax.” Duh.
I set the walkie-talkie on the rocks and said, “One.” I hope this is the same lagoon I fell in and not a rock museum. “Two.” It’s almost ten, the tide should be in by now. Right? “Three.” I can’t believe he jumped.
Caleb went right, I went left. I didn’t see the water until I was inside it. My feet didn’t hit bottom, and I kicked hard, neutralizing my body in the freezing water. My head broke the surface and I shook my eyes open. My eyes had started to adjust and there was a touch of hibernating light nestled just above the waterline.
I could barely make out the shadow of a figure about fifty feet up a rock strip against the horizon. I caught an incoming break and rode the small wave the fifteen feet to the rocky shore. The figure was unmistakable now. This cove was a hot spot for fisherman setting up illegal lobster cages and since the figure was clad in a yellow slicker I didn’t discount the possibility.
Caleb was pulling himself from the surf a foot to my left, his eyes trained on the ghost in the darkness. We hushed across the loose rock, closing the gap to a mere twenty feet. The figure was moving diligently, bent at the waist, looming over what appeared to be a lobster cage. I didn’t like the odds of your average Joe being out here on this exact date and time, but better safe than sorry.
I yelled, “Excuse me sir, can I speak with you for a moment?”
He didn’t turn and I saw him stuff something in the cage. Who puts things in a lobster cage? Aren’t you supposed to take lobsters out of them?
Caleb yelled, “Sir, would you please turn around. A lot of people have been getting sick from the lobsters in this area. We really need a minute of your time.”
Good thinking, but no.
We were within ten feet of the man when I noticed him place something else in the trap, then secure and latch the top.
I yelled, “There’s a gun trained on you this very second. I’ll give you until the count of three to turn around and state your business or I’m gonna start shooting. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. If I get to six you’re a dead man. Six. Seven. Eight. Don’t let me get to nine. Nine. Ten. Eleven.” Shit, I was a terrible bluffer.
I looked at Caleb and he shrugged.
Splash. Splash.
I whipped my head around. The figure was gone. The cage was gone. And my suspicion was they were censurable for the succession of splashes. I ran forward and gazed out on the water, but couldn’t distinguish a humpback tail from a fugitive sneer.
Caleb dove in and began scanning the ocean ten yards out. I watched as he swam back and trudged from the surf. He looked me squarely and said, “That was him, wasn’t it?”
I hadn’t dismissed the possibility of a neurotic, self-conscious, lobster-trapper, but all fingers were pointing towards Tristen Grayer. I let his question slip and asked, “Did you see the cage?”
He nodded.
Neither of us came out and said, “Kim,” but we both thought it loud enough to scare off two osprey resting on a rock nearby. I walked over to the edge of the surf and found the beginnings of a thick yellow rope. Caleb and I pulled the cage, which was roughly the size of a small aquarium, from the surf. Before it was completely void of ocean, it was evident the cage did not house lobsters. The cage lolled to its side, a finger poking out one hole, a bone splintering through another.
I unlatched the top and saw sitting atop the pile of limbs, a soiled copy of Introduction to Forensic Psychology.
Chapter 42
Caleb was glaring over my shoulder and saw the book. I helplessly watched as his patellas turned to jelly and he crumpled to the rock bed. This would have been the time I took out my cell phone and called in the cavalry to search the shores for Tristen Grayer. That would have been a realistic possibility if either Caleb or I had been smart enough to remove our cell phones before plunging into the Atlantic. I’d had the sense to leave the walkie-talkie on the edge of the cliff, why hadn’t I thought to take out my cell.
Caleb yanked on my ocean saturated pant leg and told me to be quiet. I asked, “What? Do you hear sirens already?”
It’d only been about five minutes since I’d chatted with Tim and Holly at their car window, the police couldn’t be on their way. Unless, the FBI had stumbled on the same information we had. But the chances of that were about as slim as the remains in the lobster cage not being Kim Welding.
Caleb said, “Listen closely. I think I can hear your walkie-talkie.”
I blocked out the sound of the swirling Atlantic, the whining
osprey, and the eroding rock, only to hear the distant sound of rumbling laughter. Caleb looked into my eyes and said, “He’s laughing at us.” Then added, “But how?”
There was absolutely no way Tristen Grayer could have made his way to land and to a walkie-talkie. It was a half mile swim to any point feasible to exit the ocean. Plus, I could see for at least a quarter mile and there wasn’t a boat in the general vicinity. I was mystified. I was also mystified as how to proceed. Caleb and I were cut off from the world. There was no way either of us could climb the rock wall. We would have to sit and wait for the world to find us.
Twenty minutes passed before we heard the first siren. The whirlwind of lights gave the image of a sun rising from the west. Another five minutes passed when a large spotlight shone down from where it had been erected at the bluff’s edge. A large silhouette shouted, “How in the piss did you get down there?”
It was Gleason. I was in an odd mood and replied, “Pencil to can opener—full pike.”
After a quick conversation with someone his shadow disappeared. Seconds later, there was a large splash. Gleason’s head popped out of the water and Caleb and I helped him from the water. He brushed his hands over his bald pate like he had a long flowing mane and said, “Damn, that water’s cold.”
Gleason peered upward and yelled, “Come on Todd, it’s nothing.”
I yelled, “Not yet.”
Gregory’s annoying voice echoed into the cavernous ravine, “Why?”
I cleared my throat and screamed, “It’s adult swim. I’ll blow the whistle when you can come in.” The manner in which I had decided to channel my anger could be construed as childish and antiproductive.
Gleason, Caleb, and I made the short ten steps to the lobster cage and Gleason peered at the contents, a steadfast aura about him. I heard noises behind us and turned to see Caitlin and Gregory, clad in bright yellow harnesses, shimmying their way down the bluff. Gregory had a spotlight similar to the one at the top of the bluffs clutched in his palm and set it high on an arbitrary rock, illuminating the small inlet.