by Unknown
Walter put a finger in his ear, scratched it, then made a noncommittal seesawing gesture.
“Did you have an argument with Ralph Kimble yesterday?”
“I did.”
“Called you a faggot, is that right?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s true that he called me that.”
Walter was nodding, nodding, nodding. “That get you mad?”
“I’ve been called worse things. Sticks and stones—you’ve heard the rhyme, right?”
“I seem to recall it. I understand there was some kind of, uh… physical brouhaha?”
“He hit me in the face and hit Fred Mundy in the face and knocked him down.”
“Fred Mundy…” Walter said, thoughtfully. Something was wrong about the way the boy had said that. Not “my dad” but “Fred Mundy.”
“So… can you tell me in your own words what happened the day of the argument?”
Leslie shifted in his seat, a frown creasing his face.
“Well, it’s a little complicated. There’s some, er, odd background involved.”
“Odd background?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to say anything that might incriminate you,” Phyllis chimed in.
“Thank you,” Leslie said graciously. “This isn’t incriminating, though, as much as just… well, rather difficult to believe.”
Walter leaned forward. “Try me.”
“All right. Here goes…” Leslie took a deep breath. “Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Kate and Fred Mundy came to believe in a certain set of… uh, esoteric principles, I guess. They’re not the only ones. These principles seem to indicate that, if… certain events transpire, and certain… conditions are fulfilled, that people have the potential to… uh… well, become important in ways that aren’t readily apparent.”
Walter blinked and rubbed under his nose for a moment. “I think you lost me somewhere. Can you be maybe a little more specific?”
“I don’t think the specifics matter, really. Let’s just say that twenty-one years ago, Fred and Kate conceived a child in a manner calculated to be harmonious with these principles. This child was supposed to be important, to fill an important role. A metaphysical role.”
“Metaphysical?” Phyllis asked. “You mean like… what, like a prophet or some kind of messiah figure?”
“Or an antichrist.”
Walter sat quiet for a moment, taking it in. “That child… that was you?”
“No, that child was Joe Kimble. He and I were born at the same hospital on the same night, and we were switched at birth.”
“Stop right there,” Phyllis said.
“What?” Leslie asked.
“As your counsel, I’m advising you not to say any more along those lines.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes you look like a nut,” Walter said pleasantly.
“Actually officer, I find ‘nut’ more offensive than ‘faggot.’”
Walter raised his hands, lowered his eyelids.
“I’m not calling you a nut, I’m sorry.”
“I’m willing to get a blood test to substantiate this. I’m not Leslie and Fred’s son. My parents were Ralph and Lisa Kimble.”
Walter’s eyes got wide and he leaned in.
“Huh,” he said, staring at Leslie’s lip. “That’s… that’s really somethin’.”
“If Joe Kimble consents to a blood test, you’ll find that what I’ve said is true.”
“What you’ve alleged about his parenthood, you mean,” Walter said absently, trying not to get distracted by how much that would explain about the unhappy Kimble family.
“Yes, that.”
“Had you ever met your biological father before?”
“No, yesterday was the first time.”
“And he rejected you.” It was a statement, not a question.
Leslie’s eyes fell. “Yes, I guess you could say that.”
“So now we’ve established motive.”
Leslie looked up, eyes wide. “But I didn’t do it!”
“And who did?”
“I don’t know, but someone who thinks Joe Kimble is important.”
“Metaphysically important. Like a messiah or an antichrist.”
“I know it’s hard to believe…”
“You still haven’t explained why they’d kill his dad.”
Leslie raised his hands, palms up. “I… I guess they might be trying to isolate him, cut him off from people who could give him advice…”
Walter raised a hand too, palm out for silence. “So, let’s review,” he said, and all the humor was gone from his voice. “On one hand, I’ve got some supposed group of metaphysical kooks that no one’s seen or heard from who drift into town and kill Joe Kimble’s father in some vague attempt to confuse Joe. On the other hand, I’ve got Ralph Kimble’s long lost son showing up after twenty-one years. This son’s greeting from his estranged dad is a sock in the face and some verbal abuse. Now, between those options, which one would you finger as the killer, in my place?”
Leslie just gaped.
Walter leaned back. “I think we’re done here.”
* * *
The Freak had just returned from its lunch when Carl knocked on its door. Still a little groggy and out of sorts after its long drive, the Freak was instantly on its guard. It contemplated casting a defensive magick, but decided to save its strength. Instead, it asked, “Who’s there?”
“Joe Kimble?”
For a moment, the Freak felt an odd mixture of exhilaration and fear. Had the challenger it sought found it instead? But then it realized that it was a question, not an answer. A grin creased its currently unimpressive face, and a few years dropped off its visage.
“Yeah, this is Joe Kimble. Who’s that?”
“Somebody with important news for you. News I don’t feel like yelling through a door.”
The Freak took a look through the peephole. Oh yeah. This guy was not from small town Missouri.
“Uh, okay. Let me put some pants on, all right?”
The Freak hadn’t unpacked much the night before, and it took it only seconds to throw the clothes and toiletries it had removed back into a suitcase. Then it unlocked the door.
The man on the other side strode in like he owned the place. “What are you doing in the dark?” he asked rhetorically, pulling the shades open. Then he took a seat next to the cabinet with the TV on it.
“So, uh, who are you?” the Freak asked, closing the door and taking a second chair, close to the stranger.
“My name’s Carl, but that’s not important. What matters is, I’m here representing an organization that has a lot to offer you.”
“Really? Uh, like what?” Good leather jacket, heavy knuckles, dead eyes… this guy might as well wear a baseball cap with “TNI” on it. The Freak was curious to see how he was going to handle things.
Carl reached into a pocket and the Freak tensed, coiled to spring if it saw a gun. But what emerged in Carl’s hand was not black, but green.
Wordlessly, Carl peeled off a hundred-dollar bill, crumpled it one handed and tossed it at the Freak’s chest. The Freak smoothed it out and widened its eyes, trying to act like it had never seen one before. Carl wadded up another and threw it, then again, mechanically flinging money off a seemingly infinite wad.
“Is this… is this real?”
“Shit yeah. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Carl punctuated his statement with another bill. “You got value to people you’ve never met. You’ve got potential you don’t even suspect. And you’ve got enemies you can’t imagine.”
“Enemies?”
“I’m afraid so.” Carl glanced out the window, as did the Freak, now trying to look nervous. “You’re in a position to be a threat to someone very powerful and dangerous. We can protect you if you join up with us, but if not, you probably won’t last long.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yer daddy didn’
t tell you much, huh?”
The Freak put on a mournful face and shook his head. “No. I didn’t understand all that talk about… what was it now?”
“Being an avatar? Being a godwalker?”
“What’s a godwalker?”
“You could be one, with training. But right now, there’s another godwalker out there who sees you as a threat—and it’s a relentless monster that would erase you without a second thought.”
“Really? Who… who is it?”
“No one knows its name, but they call it the Freak. By all accounts, it’s a good name. I heard a rumor that back in the seventies it cut its own lover’s throat rather than let someone else kill him.”
The Freak’s cheek twitched slightly under its left eye, but Carl paid no attention. The Freak wondered why no one had thought to warn Carl about the danger of raspy voices.
“You really think this… Freak… would hurt me when I haven’t done anything to it?”
“Absolutely. But if you’re willing to sign up with us, we can stick it to this bastard before it even sees it coming.”
The Freak said nothing, because it was concentrating on the cells, on their looseness, on the apparent solidity of its body being an illusion like the stillness of a pond… its body was like a still pond, a still pond…
“I’m not sure,” it said.
“Well, the alternatives are pretty grim,” Carl said, and opened his jacket so that his shoulder holster could be seen.
Carl had no time to react. The Freak was out of its chair and onto him before he realized what was happening. He reached across his body as the Freak reached into his face, its fingers probing through skin, through skull, past the eyes, its mind and will locked on Carl’s cells, making them slippery and inconsequential. It reached through his face like putty until it hit the pons, then scooped that out with a generous chunk of medulla oblongata.
Carl died. His fingers had just brushed the butt of his gun.
The Freak stepped back and flung the wad of tissue into Carl’s lap. It was thinking vague thoughts about cleaning up and leaving. Then it saw a flash of light from a van outside and heard the bang as a bullet smashed through the window and into its shoulder. It dropped to the floor instantly.
The bullet should have left it nearly dead. It didn’t. The “still pond” spell it had cast before killing Carl reduced the injury to a minor annoyance. The Freak crouched and, with a shower of glass, jumped through the window, sprinting towards the van.
Jolene saw it coming and fired again, her eyes widening when she saw that the two bullets hadn’t even slowed it. She turned the ignition with her right hand and started rolling up the window with her left.
The whole van rocked on its springs as the Freak jumped onto its side, one hand clinging to the roof rack. The window was up, but it only took the Freak a moment to smash through it. Still, it was enough time for Jolene to put the van in gear and floor it.
The Freak pulled its arm back for a second blow and Jolene slammed her fist into the center of its face, as hard as she could.
Her hand sunk into the flesh as if it was watery bread dough. She screamed in revulsion, pulling her hand back as the Freak’s face reformed. Then it was the Freak’s turn to punch at her, but Jolene swung the steering wheel hard, banging her unwanted passenger against the side of the truck and ruining its blow. Hysterically, she reached for it again.
At that moment, the Freak’s defensive spell wore off. Jolene was able to seize it by the throat with a powerful, crushing grip. Years of training taught her to reach around the trachea, like pinching shut a garden hose.
The Freak did not have Jolene’s years of close combat training, but it did have extensive knowledge of human anatomy, along hands strong enough to crush walnuts between two fingers. Jolene screamed again as her wrist was seized, twisted, and dislocated. Then her eyes flicked forward and widened. The Freak turned to see what she was looking at.
It was a light pole, and Jolene had just adjusted the truck’s direction. Before, it had been on a collision course. Now, instead of hitting the van, the pole was in position to scrape the Freak off its side.
With a hoarse bellow of its own the Freak braced a foot against the truck and kicked hard, letting go and flying aside. It missed the pole by inches and barely remembered to tuck its head and roll before striking the asphalt. It leaped to its feet, ready to bolt if the van turned to run it down, but Jolene was making tracks.
At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from that thing as was humanly possible.
As for the Freak, it stood with a wince, taking stock. It would have to cover the shirt—bullet holes and blood made it too conspicuous by half. There was a puncture mark on its shoulder and another in its chest, leaking blood on the loops of chain. They should have been gaping bullet holes, but they were reduced to oozing sores. Nothing too serious. It put a hand to its throat—sore on the inside with old scars—but that wasn’t too bad either. Its arm was sore from the self-inflicted cut, but that was a wound its magick couldn’t touch. It would just have to cowboy up. No, the worst was probably the fall. It stretched; big hematomas, a couple spinal subluxations and what felt like a cracked rib. It clucked its tongue. It was spending its magick at a rapid rate, but there was no help for it. It had to be in good shape when that assassin in the truck came back for more. And there was plenty where that had come from.
With an effort of will its rib was made whole, its spine clicked back into place and its bruises faded from sight.
* * *
“Hi Joe,” Chief Walter Stelke said, clicking on the tape recorder.
“Hi yourself,” Joe said sullenly.
“Got something you want to tell me?”
“Yeah. Your jail sucks.”
The big cop smiled mirthlessly. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Kimble. You might think you won’t do hard time as a first offender, but Missouri doesn’t look too kindly on patricides.”
Joe looked confused for a moment, because he’d thought the Chief had said “pesticides.” Then it clicked.
“What, you think I did it? Jesus fuckin’ Christ, what are they paying you for?”
Walter sucked his teeth. Joe was the obvious suspect. The chief had Dan Hamilton’s statement that Kimble had checked into the motel after an argument with his father, and that he’d seemed angry and upset. The timing was right. But Joe sure as hell wasn’t acting guilty.
He decided to put the pressure on.
“Yes Joe, I think you did it.”
“That’s crazy, man! He was my dad.”
“So? All that means is, you probably had the strongest feelings towards him of anybody. Who else in the world cared about him enough to kill him?”
“Who else? You talk to those three Mundy fuckos? Shit, there’s, there’s your killers right there.”
“You think so?”
“Who else?”
“Well Joe, it was someone else, since they were still in the diner when your father was killed.”
Joe opened his mouth and then shut it.
“That can’t be right,” he said at last.
“Officer Washington said your dad was still warm. That means he was killed real soon before he got there. The three Mundys were in the restaurant, with him, right up to the point that he got the call from you. Sorry Joe, that dog won’t hunt.”
“Well, shit.” Joe’s face was slack, his eyes distant with pure bafflement. “I don’t know then. I got no idea.”
“Maybe I can jog your memory,” the police chief said. “Someone close to him. Someone who had an argument with him. Someone who left in a huff and stayed in a hotel. Someone who bloodied the nose of a hotel employee. You know anyone like that?”
“Look, I didn’t do it!”
There was a tentative knock at the door. Walter’s lips got tight.
“I’m busy in here,” he barked.
“Sir, this is pretty important.” It was Andy’s voice.
The chie
f got up, glared at Joe and said “We ain’t done.” Then he went outside.
It was Phil King who came back a few minutes later and escorted Joe back to his cell. Joe asked what was going on, but got no straight answer.
Behind him, in the interrogation room, the tape reached its end and stopped with a loud click.
Out in his car, Chief Stelke tried to make sense of a second murder in a single day, this time at the Motel 8. He shook his head and reached for the Maalox once again.
Time
Will
Tell
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chief Stelke stood in the doorway to Room 10, not thinking about anything in particular, just trying to sort out the impressions of his senses.
The odor had gotten him first, while he was still walking down the hallway. He’d smelled puke first, and had seen it right outside the doorway. Then, in the doorway, the smell of shit started to blend with vomit. He guessed that the victim had made in his drawers when he died. The puke was probably from the first witness on the scene.
He felt a shudder in his gut, reacting to the aromas and the sights. He sucked on Maalox-tasting teeth, hoping he’d keep it down himself.
There was less blood than one might expect, but the victim’s face was just gone. Where most of it should have been was a meaty hole, right above a slack but intact lower jaw. Blood dripped down the chin and glistened on the nameless man’s shirtfront.
“Sir?”
Walter blinked, and turned towards Roberta. She looked kind of green but was staying professional. Good.
“Yeah?”
“The desk clerk, Evan Hamilton, called in at 3:33. He reported hearing loud noises in the parking lot, then squealing tires…”
“Roberta? Just hold on a second, okay?”
“Oh. Yes sir.”
He took a step towards the body. A big guy, strong looking. He squinted and pulled a pencil from his breast pocket. Slowly he bent forward, waving a few flies away, and used the pencil to push the man’s coat open.
“Huh.”
Shoulder holster. Empty.
He turned and looked at the room as the corpse would have seen it.