Beneath the Mask of Sanity

by Mark Phillips

  “I don’t know baby, he’ll be back soon though.”

  Karen tilted her head to the left and looked at her mother as if she were some exotic species of bug trundling on the carpet.

  “Were you crying Mommy?”

  Sheila shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe a little.”

  “Are you and Daddy getting a divorce?”

  “No honey,” Sheila said, but her voice was too quick and too sharp to be honest.

  “Okay. ‘cause Jeane’s mom and dad got a divorce and now she’s sad all the time.”

  Karen turned and walked out of the kitchen. Sheila watched her go and suppressed an urge to call out to her to stay, to be with her for a little while. Instead, she walked into the living room and picked up the phone.

  Her fingers glided over the familiar numbers. After a few seconds of ringing someone answered. There had been so many unsuccessful tries before that she had readied herself for the voicemail. Instead the line went live.

  “George, Jesus where are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  Sheila wrinkled her brow. The voice wasn’t George.

  “Who the hell is this?” She kept her voice steady but her insides were on a demon drop.

  “This is Detective Frank Miles with the Yucca police department.”

  “Oh my God has George been arrested?”

  The silence on the other end answered both the question she asked and the one that she had been too afraid to ask.

  “What happened?”

  The detective cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “I think you’d better meet me at the station. Where are you now?”

  “At home.”

  “And where is that?”

  “127347 W. Abrams Road.”

  “What city.” Miles’s voice was short and annoyed.

  “San Ignace.”

  More silence.

  “Where is George? What’s going on?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sheila Braddock! Don’t you ever answer a question?”

  “Mrs. Braddock, I’d rather do this in person but I don’t think that’s possible right now, so I’ll just tell you.”

  Sheila’s hand squeezed the telephone, she shut her eyes. In the background she could hear Karen walking down the steps and asking something.

  “Mrs. Braddock, I’m afraid that your husband’s dead.”

  Tears burst out of Sheila’s eyes and a scream ripped through her chest and throat into the air.

  “No!”

  The scream dripped into large, wet sobs. Sheila bent over in the chair. She heard more talking, both from the phone and from Karen behind her. All the noise seemed to melt away whenever it got close to her. There was nothing but Sheila and her grief, which took up everything.

  4.

  Bentley sat alone. The room was dark and that was fine. There was no formal floor to the place, only the soil, dirtying Bentley’s socks. That didn’t matter either. The only thing that did matter was what was sitting on the table.

  The table was the only object in the small shack. It was four walls, no floor, no lights and a chair. Still it was enough, more than enough. All Bentley needed was what was sitting on the table. The picture of George and his family.

  Bentley stared at the picture. He marked the faces. George: standing, smiling, with his arm around the taller girl, Katie. Karen: standing next to her sister, a big goofy smile on her face. There was a black hole between the second and fourth tooth on the left side.

  “Bet you got a nice little gift from the tooth fairy for that one, didn’t you?”

  Bentley looked over at Karen’s mother. “And you did it, didn’t you? George wouldn’t do it. He’d be too loud and clumsy. No, you did it.”

  Bentley clenched his right fist together so hard that he felt the fingernails bite into the palm.

  There was only one other thing on the table, a severed human head. Bentley turned his eyes towards it and smiled. The hair was grey and stringy. It came down to the place where the eyes would have been. Instead, two empty holes gaped back. Blood had pooled at the base of the head and seeped out onto the table. Bentley ran his finger through it and held it up to his eyes. It ran down, as if trying to escape him.

  Bentley stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked. While he did this he closed his eyes and moaned softly.

  The rest of the body lay on the ground of the shack. The hobo had not been hard to kill. He was scrawny and weak. Bentley had taken what he needed and now he had a place to sleep. The rest would be just as easy.

  5.

  The house was one of those charming seaside capes. Red brick, shutters on the windows, bay window. And all I had to do was drive all the way to fucking San Ignace to see it, Frank thought.

  He rang the doorbell and waited. He knew that Sheila was there, he could see a car in the driveway, and he assumed that it wasn’t George’s.

  Where would she go anyway, he thought. If you’d just been told that your spouse was dead could you go anywhere?

  The door creaked open. A small, round face, low to the ground, smiled up at Frank.

  “Hello.”

  Miles felt a lump form in his throat and talked around it, though with great effort. “Hello, little lady. Is your mother home?”

  The girl nodded. Her face was worried, but not grief stricken. This was going to be worse than Frank had thought.

  “Are you the man from Daddy’s phone?”

  “Uh, yep.” Frank smiled back and nodded. “My name’s Frank Miles. I work with the police.”

  “What happened to Daddy? Is he in trouble?”

  “Well…uh…you see…” Frank scratched his scalp and then let his hand slide down his face, feeling the pressure.

  “Karen where are…” At the last syllable the voice broke off into stunned silence, less than a second later. “Get away from that door!”

  Karen’s face turned shocked, but she remained where she was. Frank heard the sound of pounding feet heading in his direction.

  Sheila appeared and wrapped a hand around Karen, pulling her close to her body. She reached out and whirled the girl to face her. “What did I tell you about answering the door when you don’t know who’s on the other side?”

  Karen stared into her mother’s eyes and didn’t speak a word. Her face seemed almost waxen; there was a lack of emotion there that Frank didn’t like at all. It was as if the kid already knew and was simply preparing herself for the news. Maybe she was.

  “Mrs. Braddock I’m Detective Miles, we spoke on the phone.”

  Frank stuck out his hand. Sheila turned and looked at him. Black rings circled her eyes. The whites had gone all red and her face had a puffiness that drained away all his professionalism.

  Frank stood for a second with his hand hanging out, waiting for a partner to hold on to. When none came, he pulled it back and laid it at his side.

  “I was wondering if I could come in and have a few words with you?”

  Frank didn’t smile. He knew who to humor with faked pleasantries and whom not to.

  Sheila continued to look at him for a few seconds that spun out into the air with all the speed of a millennium. Finally, she nodded and stepped away from the door, granting Frank the space he needed to enter.

  “Do you have a place where we can sit and talk?”

  Instead of answering his question, Sheila looked down at her daughter. “Karen, I need you to go upstairs so that the detective and I can have a little talk.”

  Karen’s eyes were still confused, her face still waxen, but she nodded and hurried off to the staircase. Sheila pointed to a couch and two chairs in what, Frank assumed, constituted the living room.

  “If you’ll have a seat I’ll be right with you.”

  Frank walked over to the couch and plopped down. His sport coat fanned out around him like a child’s cape on an adult. His hands found his lap and folded themselves there. Frank looked around. There was no television, only the furniture on the muted, tan
carpet and a large fireplace. The fireplace was black and dormant. Pictures hung on the wall. Most of them were family photographs that Frank’s eyes kept avoiding. There was a painting of a boy with blonde hair, sitting on a bench. The boy wore blue overalls and was in the process of tying his shoes. One foot was propped up on the bench for the task, an apple sat beside the foot. The boy’s face was turned towards…towards what? The camera is what Frank thought, but of course that wasn’t right. Towards the artist, he supposed. He wore a slight smile as if in small glee over the triumph of mastering his laces.

  Sheila walked back into the room with a mug in each hand.

  “I hope you like coffee.”

  Frank smiled. He didn’t, but this didn’t seem like the time or the place to refuse the offer.

  “Sure.”

  Sheila smiled and handed him a cup. The smile was wan and weak.

  The cup was hot under Frank’s hands and he transferred the job of holding it to his thumb and first two fingers as he gripped the handle.

  Sheila raised her cup to her lips and took a sip. Frank looked into his own mug, watching the steam pour out of it. It was black and muddy looking. He raised it and took a sip, biting back the bitterness that sailed down his throat.

  “Mrs. Braddock…”

  “Please, Sheila. We’ve been through so much together already, why not make it Sheila.”

  “Okay. Sheila, I need to ask you some questions, find out if there’s anything that we should know, so that we can catch whatever son of bitch did this.”

  Sheila flinched at the curse.

  “Sorry about the language.”

  “It’s not that,” Sheila replied. “This whole thing…” She looked over at the fireplace and thought for a moment. “It’s not real for me yet. George and I have known each other for twenty years. We’ve been married for fifteen.”

  “Is that why you haven’t told your daughter yet?”

  Sheila snapped her gaze back. Her eyes were sharp and hard. “Katie’s not home yet. I called her on her phone and told her to come back at once, but I didn’t want to tell her why, not over the phone. As for Karen…” She looked away, her chest hitching. “I’m not doing it more than once.”

  Frank nodded. “Sure, I understand. This isn’t something that you ever want to do, let alone twice.”

  “How many times have you done it?”

  Frank balked at the question for a second. “Well, it’s not the same when it’s not your family.”

  “Yes, but how many?”

  Frank sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s not something I keep a count on. Maybe, fifty.”

  “Fifty times.” Sheila spoke in a soft, awed voice.

  “Somewhere around there.”

  “Where is George now?”

  “He’s with the medical examiner. There’re verifying the cause of death and looking for any physical evidence that we might be able to use.”

  “So you know the cause of death?”

  Frank shook his head slowly. “Well, we…I, have a suspicion, but we like to be sure that there isn’t some other cause that might lead us to a clue.”

  “What do you think the cause of death was?”

  “Mrs. Braddock I think that we should-”

  “Please tell me.”

  Sheila stared at Miles with cavernous, brown eyes. It was as if the death of her husband had killed the lights in there.

  “Blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Now some light returned, but it wasn’t warm, it was a sickened light.

  “You mean someone beat him to death? Why?”

  “As far as I can tell, it seems like your husband stopped by the side of the road, either to use the bathroom or to help someone out that might have been on the shoulder. Whoever did this stole your husband’s wallet and his car. The only way I have an ID on him so quickly is because of your voicemail on his cell phone.”

  “They took his wallet, his car, his life…and they left his cell phone?”

  Frank nodded. “It would seem so. Now there are a few questions, I’d like to ask you.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good-”

  “Detective, he’s my husband, don’t I have a right to see him. Besides, maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s some person that stole his phone and then was killed himself.”

  Miles had thought of that. He had thought of a lot of things on the drive to San Ignace. He had ruled these thoughts out. First, if the victim wasn’t George Braddock then why hadn’t the real Braddock reported his phone stolen, or stopped at a payphone, or come home.

  Yet the doubts (wishful thinking really) had remained until Ryan, back at the office, had emailed him a copy of George Braddock’s driver’s license picture on his in-car computer.

  Even as messed up as the face had been there was no mistaking him. He was the victim.

  “Mrs. Braddock…Sheila, I would like you to come to ID the body, but first I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why was your husband on interstate five?”

  “We had been having some marital problems and George had decided to go away on a trip to Tempe on business. He thought the time away would do some good.”

  “Did it?”

  “It seemed to. The last time that we talked on the phone was yesterday, on his way back up. He…” Tears welled around the already red eyes. Frank was surprised there was any moisture left. “He said he loved me.” The last croaked out as a series of watery, guttural noises.”

  Frank put his hand on Sheila’s back as she leaned over in her chair with her face in her hands. After a few moments she composed herself and looked up.

  “The last time I talked to him was yesterday at about one in the afternoon.”

  “Okay, so that gives us an area of about twenty-four hours for time of death.”

  Sheila looked into Frank’s eyes. Fresh tears welled there, forming drops like rain and dropping down. “Do you really think it’s him?”

  Miles opened his mouth to answer but before he could get a word out the door opened.

  “Mom! What is so important that-”

  The door closed and Miles saw the girl with the big voice. It was amazing, it was as if Sheila had gotten up and walked to the door, dropping thirty years off of her as she went.

  The little girl had only a passing resemblance to her mother (it was the eyes more than anything) but this one could have been her twin.

  The girl turned towards the living room and cut her voice out.

  “Oh, there you are.” The voice was soft, confused. Miles could understand, it was common when he showed up for people to react that way, either genuinely or faked.

  “Katie, this is Detective Miles, he’s from the Yucca police department.”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  Frank thought about responding, but then thought better of it. This part wasn’t for him, this was a family matter.

  “I think I should go out to my cruiser. I have some calls to make.” Frank stood up and buttoned his coat. He left the coffee cup on the table, not sorry that he wasn’t able to finish it. “You should have a talk with your family. I’ll wait outside for you, if you want to follow me to the…” Miles turned and looked at Katie. “To the location.”

  “That would be fine. I appreciate your coming out.”

  “Just part of my job.” Miles walked out the door and into the warm air, wishing that he’d followed his Mom’s advice and become a lawyer instead.

  6.

  Katie jerked at thumb at the now closed front door. “What’s going on here?”

  Sheila ran a hand over her face and continued to look down. She didn’t want either of her children to see her like this. She didn’t want any of this to be happening.

  “Can you go upstairs and get your sister?”

  Katie’s eyebrows arched. “I’d really like you to tell me what’s going on before anything else.”

/>   Sheila raised her head and looked at her daughter. Shock spread across Katie’s face.

  “Mom what’s wrong?” The voice was panicked and anxious.

  “Get your sister please.”

  Katie ran up the steps. Sheila held her breath as she went. It was going to take a lot of energy to do this.

  7.

  “Blunt force trauma to the head?” Frank asked.

  “That’s correct,” Lester Pearson replied. “He was killed by some sort of a bat or pipe. Something rounded anyway, the damage is consistent with a bat, but my guess would be a large metal pipe.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “During my examination I found several flakes of iron oxide, as far as I know aluminum bats don’t rust.”

  “Could it have been a tire iron or something like that?”

  “No, the wounds suggest something rather large.”

  “So the suspect would have had to be strong?”

  “Probably so, yes. Most likely a male and probably a lefty.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The wounds show damage right to left. The initial impact in all the blows came on the right side and moved to the left. The victim was found on his stomach, but the evidence suggests that he was hit while on his back. There are some wounds on the hands and arms suggesting that he was trying to defend against the blows.”

  “So he was conscious during the attack.”

  “Most certainly. Also, his knee was damaged in the attack. The killer probably struck the knee first to immobilize the victim and then beat him to death.”

  “What else did you find?”

  “That’s about it. Toxicology report came back negative. He wasn’t drugged, I am confident that the scene you found him on was the scene of the attack.”

  “What about the lab rats?”

  “George Wilson is handling the case. I haven’t had a chance to speak with him yet.”

  “I have his number, I’ll call him. Thanks for the info Les.”