“Nah, tonight’s her night off. My manager Trevor’s here, though.”
“No, it’s not about bar business. I have her home address. We’ll try there. Thanks. Oh, how about a drink?”
“Now?”
“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble.”
The bouncer hesitated a moment and then nodded. He held the door open for them, and Giovanni followed Rosen into the dark. The bar was large, with two separate dance floors and serving counters separated by a single door in a wall made of glass, presumably so each half of the bar could see the other. Stairs led up to the second floor and a balcony where people could stare down at everyone else. Velvet furniture was thrown around randomly, and a massive mirror behind the bar took up almost the entire wall. Rosen leaned against the bar and said, “How ’bout a Coors?”
The bouncer said, “Sure.” He took a bottle from underneath the bar and placed it in front of Rosen before popping the top off.
“Nothing for me,” Giovanni said. “Thanks.”
The bouncer nodded and stepped away. Far enough that, Giovanni knew, he could still hear what they were saying.
“You sure?” Rosen said.
“I’m good.” He turned around, facing the dance floor. “I remember coming to places like this,” Giovanni said. “Back when I was outta high school. My friends and I would try to pick up girls and take them home for the night. We struck out probably ninety-nine percent of the time, but man, that one percent made up for it.”
“You still go out?”
“No. I don’t like how loud it is.”
Rosen nodded. “I was married at nineteen. Never got to experience the single life.” He scanned the bar. “But I tell you, things have seriously changed. This is all anonymous and dark. It used to be about meeting new people and having good conversations.” He drained his beer in a few gulps and laid a five on the bar. “Ready?”
“Yup.”
They headed out, and Rosen threw him the keys. “You drive.”
“Where we headed?”
“Just two miles up the road. She likes to live near where she works apparently.”
Giovanni pulled away and into traffic. It seemed like there was a stoplight on every corner, and even though they were traveling only a couple of miles, it took nearly twenty minutes. Giovanni let his mind drift rather than focusing on the traffic. One car cut him off and then tried to swerve into the next lane over and nearly got clipped.
“It’s that one,” Rosen said, ignoring the near accident.
The apartment building was rectangular and brown, nothing special or out of the ordinary. The bits of grass before it were yellowed, but the trees engulfing it were green. Giovanni parked at the curb, and the two men stepped out of the car.
The interior of the building smelled slightly of mildew, and the carpets had stains—enough to be noticeable but seemingly not enough to warrant a cleaning. Several apartments were crammed in on each side of the hallway, and Rosen checked his phone before walking up two flights of stairs and knocking on one of the doors.
Giovanni stared out a window at the traffic while they waited. Some sort of medical clinic was across the street, their wall adorned with graffiti. Next to that was another apartment complex with paint peeling off the exterior.
“Nobody’s home,” Rosen said. “I’ll leave my card. We can try again tomorrow.”
Just as they were taking the stairs, a door opened. Giovanni glanced back to see a man coming out of an apartment across the hall from Sarah King’s.
“Excuse me,” Rosen said. “We’re looking for Sarah. Do you happen to know when she’ll be back?”
“Couldn’t say. She works nights.”
“Ah.”
“Who are you guys exactly?”
“We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We needed Sarah’s help with something. You don’t happen to know where she could be right now, do you?”
“No, sorry. Well, there’s a bar around the corner she’s at sometimes.”
“Which bar?”
“Habituals. It’s the flat kinda square building.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
“No prob.”
Rosen looked at Giovanni and said, “Couldn’t hurt. Let’s walk.”
12
Darkness swallowed the figure at the desk. The room was cement walls with a single rug, the desk and his chair, and a fridge. In the corner was a water pipe that ran from the ceiling down through the floor and into the bowels of the house. Handcuffed to the pipe was a young woman in a nightie.
He looked over at her. The woman’s head was bobbing up and down, the drugs still dulling her. The only illumination in the entire room was the florescent lighting on the ceiling.
“Please…” she mumbled. “I wanna go home. I just wanna go home.”
“Whores don’t speak unless spoken to.”
“Just let me go. I promise I won’t tell anybody anything. I just… I just wanna go home.”
The man exploded out of his chair and rushed at her. He slapped her across the mouth so hard she fell over, caught by the handcuffs on her wrists, which cut in and made her bleed.
“Whores don’t speak unless spoken to!”
The man stood over her, his eyes blazing with fury. His chest was heaving, hoping she would say another word so he could cut out her tongue. But she didn’t. She sobbed quietly. The man relaxed and returned to his desk. He picked up the small brush and began working again.
“Are you hungry?”
She hesitated. “No, I’m not hungry.”
“Thirsty?”
“Yes.”
The man lowered his work again and rose. He went to the small fridge in the corner. Inside were several bottles of sports drinks and some casserole he had made. He dipped his finger in the casserole and tasted it, closing his eyes as he savored the flavor.
He took one of the sports drinks and opened it, brought it over to the woman, and put it to her lips. She sipped at it softly.
“There,” he said almost gently. “Drink.”
A quarter of the bottle was gone when he stopped. He capped it and stared at the woman. She would be considered beautiful by conventional standards. Her breasts were coming out of her nightie, and it aroused him, but it wasn’t time. Not yet. He reached down and pulled the nightie up to cover the breasts.
“You have my permission to sleep.”
As the man turned to get back to his work, the woman shouted, “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep!” She pulled at her handcuffs, swearing and spitting, trying her best to break free. The man calmly walked to his table and looked over his tools. He grabbed the pair of scissors.
“What’re you doing?” she said. “Stop. Stop!”
He cut out just the first half of her tongue and threw it on the floor beside her. Blood poured out of her mouth, and he watched it awhile as she cried and screamed. Then he returned to his table and meticulously cleaned the blades of the scissors.
In front of him was what appeared to be a mask but was not. The face was dried and stretched, as were the others up on the wall in front of him.
The man picked up his brush and began his work again. The woman was trying to scream, but he didn’t mind. There’d be plenty of that soon enough.
13
Sarah sat by herself in the corner, away from the windows and the other people in the bar. She didn’t feel like talking right now. All she wanted to do was drink, and forget. But the more she drank, the weaker her will became, and the images began to take over. It was as if it exposed a crack in her mind, and the weaker her will, the larger the crack.
She motioned to the waitress for another drink as two men walked into the bar. The place was dimly lit, not the type of establishment meant for hanging out and socializing in. It was a place to get drunk and nothing else. These two didn’t look like they wanted to get drunk.
One was older with pure white hair. The other one was young and handsome with a chiseled face and high ch
eekbones. They spoke to the bartender for a moment, and the bartender looked over at Sarah before the two began walking over to her.
“Sarah King?” the older man said.
She looked past them, as though ignoring them would make them go away. “No.”
“You’re not the Sarah King from Lancaster County?”
“No.”
He hesitated. “I don’t believe you.”
She exhaled as the waitress brought another drink. Sarah thanked her and gulped down half the glass without tasting it. “Who are you?” she said.
“I’m Agent Arnold Rosen with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this is Agent Giovanni Adami. We were hoping we could talk to you for a minute.”
“About what?” she said, not looking up from the table.
“About Nathan Archer.”
Sarah froze. Her eyes slowly drifted up, and she stared at the two men. “I don’t have anything to say about him.”
Rosen sat down at the table next to her, and Giovanni followed. She suddenly felt uncomfortably boxed in.
“Even if I told you that the same type of murders have started again?”
“Same type?”
“Six months ago we found the first body. Torn apart like she’d gone through a meat grinder. And the face had been removed. Same as Archer.”
Sarah didn’t move or say anything. Every bit of concentration she had went toward fighting off the flood of images and sounds trying to worm their way into her mind. And she couldn’t tell if they were memories or something else.
“I can’t help you with that,” she said.
“See, we were told that you had a hand in catching Nathan Archer. But the sheriff wasn’t exactly too clear on how you did it.”
She looked the old man in the eyes. His eyes were steely, showing no trace of what was going on inside. But the younger one had soft eyes. Eyes that took in what he saw and sympathized with it.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Are you sure? Sheriff Bullock seemed to think differently.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Sorry to disappoint.”
The younger one, Giovanni, said, “I told you. Let’s go.”
Giovanni rose, but Rosen stayed put. He stared at her, as if trying to read something about her from the way she wasn’t looking at him.
“Can you do what I think you can do?” he said, quietly enough that Sarah was certain the younger one couldn’t hear.
“Please leave,” she said.
Rosen nodded and then rose. “I’m sorry.”
With that, the two agents left the bar. Sarah watched them until they were gone, and then she stood up and left some money on the table. She had to go cover Jeannie’s shift.
Pink’s was unusually packed. Sarah worked the bar with two other bartenders, but it didn’t seem like they had enough staff. She didn’t have time to mingle or drink. All she could do was mix the drinks, take payments, and keep the bar reasonably free of clutter.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
She looked up to see a man with a Penn State T-shirt standing in front of her.
“What can I get you?” she said.
“What time do you get off?” he said. “’Cause I’d like to watch.”
He chuckled, but Sarah gave him an icy stare. “I don’t find that funny.”
“What? Listen, my buddy over there said you were good to go.”
Sarah glanced back to where he was pointing. A group of men huddled in a booth. One of them looked familiar, a man from her past whom she’d slept with.
“So what time you get off?” he said.
“I’m not interested.”
“Hey, I’m just askin’ what time you get off. And in case you didn’t notice, you’re not the hottest bitch here.”
She moved to turn away and get to another customer when he grabbed her wrist. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”
A single image came to her mind. This man sneaking into a window in high school. Another boy was in bed, and the man got undressed and entered the bed.
Sarah said, “Closeted gay men don’t usually hit on me. Maybe one of the male bartenders would better fit you.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
Sarah ignored him and continued with the drinks. The man walked back to the table, and the group of men laughed, glaring at her. She felt her face get hot and wanted to be somewhere else, but there was nowhere else to be. So instead she just told Trevor she was taking a five-minute break and would be right back.
Sarah grabbed a beer and went out to the back alley. She leaned against the wall as she twisted off the top of the bottle and tossed it into the nearby dumpster. It missed and bounced on the ground. She walked over and bent down to pick it up when she heard someone behind her.
She turned, startled, and saw Agent Rosen casually strolling toward her.
“What’re you doing here?” she said.
“I was inside and saw you duck out here. It’s quiet,” he said, looking around, “but not exactly sanitary.”
“What do you want, Agent Rosen?”
“Just call me Arnold.” He leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets. “The sheriff struck me as a man who believed in miracles. His entire house was nothing but religious paintings.”
“Really?” she said, taking a sip of beer. “He wasn’t that religious when I knew him.”
“When was that?”
“Last time I saw him was about six years ago, when I left Lancaster County.”
“Why did you leave?”
Sarah ambled over to the wall across from him and leaned back, letting the bottle dangle in her fingers. “Trouble at home, wanting to see the world… You name it, I guess.”
Rosen nodded and was quiet a moment as he watched a pedestrian walk past the alley. “Do you have it, Sarah?”
“Have what?”
“You know what.”
She didn’t say anything.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Rosen said. “Be honest.”
Sarah looked him over. She took another sip of the beer. Allowing one thought to enter her mind, she saw a woman in a hospital bed. The woman turned to her and said something. It wasn’t a full picture. It was more akin to turning on a faucet and then immediately closing it, letting only the smallest spray out.
“I see your wife.”
Rosen’s mouth fell open. It only lasted a moment, and then he gained control of himself again. “What about her?” he managed to get out.
“She says that the blanket was warm enough. I don’t know what it means.”
Tears welled up in Rosen’s eyes, and he had to turn away. He paced around the alley, acting as though he were lost in thought. But Sarah could see he was fighting back the tears.
“A few days before she passed,” he said quietly, “I brought her a blanket. She was unconscious at the time. But I still talked to her. I told her I was worried that the blanket was too thin and wouldn’t keep her warm.”
Sarah didn’t say anything. She thought back to the last time she saw her mother. The shame and guilt on her face as she turned her back on Sarah.
“How long have you had this gift?”
“Gift?” she scoffed.
“It’s a gift, Sarah. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”
She sipped her beer and looked out of the alley at the cars passing by. “You see those shows on TV, and they show the dead as full of light and love. That they’re there to tell us things and let us know they love us.” She looked him in the eyes. “Do you know what the dead actually are? They’re angry. They’re angry, and they’re jealous that we’re still alive. And they take it out on anybody who can see them. Murder victims are terrified and lash out because they don’t know what else to do. This isn’t a gift. My life has been a nightmare since the day I was born…” She trailed off, leaning her head back against the wall. “A waking nightmare. I can’t wake up.”
Rosen was quiet a long while. He finally said, “My grandmother taught me
that just because you don’t believe in things doesn’t mean they aren’t real. She lived in a world filled with ghosts and demons. With possibility. But she wasn’t bitter. She said every day she looked for a way to help people. On this side or the next.”
She was silent a moment before finishing off her beer and throwing the bottle into the dumpster. “What do you want from me?”
“I want your help. The person who did this, I think, will keep doing this for a long time. He’s smart, and completely detached from any human emotion. He won’t stop, Sarah.”
“Do you know how many people die every day? I can’t help all of them.”
“No, but you can help the ones that are being killed by him.” He took out his card and slipped it into her hand. “Please call me if you change your mind.”
Sarah watched Rosen walk out of the alley and go around the corner. She was alone again, in the dark.
She sighed and went back inside the bar.
14
As the crowds began leaving the bar around two in the morning, Sarah finished her side work and wiped everything down. Bottles were replaced, the tills were counted, and she helped some of the other staff make sure the tables were clean before the maintenance crew came in the morning to clean the floors.
“You doin’ okay?” Trevor asked from behind the bar, where he was filling in a spreadsheet.
“I’m fine.” Sarah used a fresh rag to wipe down a table. “Why?”
“I know you visited Jeannie. Do they know what happened?”
She stopped what she was doing and sat down, moving the rag aside. “She was raped.”
“Shit.” He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and brought it over to the table with two tumblers. He poured a couple of fingers in each and pushed one toward her. They clinked glasses and downed the drinks.
“Do they know who?”
“This guy she’d been seeing for a couple weeks. She’s pretty beat up, Trevor.”
“Did they find the guy?”
“I don’t know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand that urge, man. To beat up on a woman. I mean, how could you feel good about yourself doing something like that? I just don’t get it.”
Blood Dahlia - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries) Page 6