The Delilah Complex

by MJ Rose

  As leaves die, they alone become more beautiful. As they perish, they offer up a palette of screaming colors.

  The wind blew and hundreds of lemon-yellow aspen leaves took wing, dipping and soaring on the breeze, flying around me, as colorful and as graceful as butterflies.

  It had been slightly overcast when I got out of the car, but the cloud cover had blown away and the sun shone now and illuminated the landscape around me and the house beyond.

  I walked toward it, getting closer and closer until, with the sun shining like that, I could see right into Daphne’s studio. There were several large canvases on display. About three feet away, I stopped. No, that’s not accurate. About three feet away, the painting I saw through the glass stopped me.

  The portrait on the easel was of a man. Naked. Sitting in a chair. His head lolled to one side. His expression was slack and lifeless. His flesh fell in folds.

  The painting was darker around the edges and lightened as it came closer to the center, so that there was a brightness on the man’s midsection. At the very center of that spotlight, displayed the way a diamond is exhibited in one of Tiffany’s windows, was the prize—the most detailed and lovingly painted part of the canvas: the man’s flaccid and very small penis.

  Something was familiar about the composition. What? Where had I seen it before? I looked at the next easel. Another portrait of a naked man. He was standing, leaning really, against a wall. His shoulders slumped. He looked out, imploring, begging for help.

  Daphne was more than accomplished. She was masterful. She captured emotions and intentions as well as any artist whose work hung in a gallery.

  Like the other painting, this one employed a halo effect so that, after being assaulted by the man’s expression, I was drawn to the dead center of his body. His penis was wrinkled, red, shrunken. Impotent.

  Overall, Daphne’s style was luminous and detailed, but nowhere on the canvases did she lavish more detail and time and create as much grotesque beauty as with the genitalia.

  That was when I saw the third painting.

  The nausea rose quickly. I didn’t expect it, so I didn’t have time to prepare myself for the violent way the image struck me. I put my hand out, reaching for a tree branch, and held on while I vomited on the newly fallen leaves.

  And then I ran toward the house.

  Sixty-Two

  Ronny White watched the silver Mercedes SUV pull into the parking lot of the emergency wing of the Greenwich Hospital and noted the license plate.

  The hospital was well staffed, well appointed, and catered to the inhabitants of the town’s population of 60,000, who were among the most wealthy in the United States. He liked his job. The hospital never got crazy busy like a big-city hospital. Great doctors worked there, imported from large cities to cater to the needs of the well heeled. Most of all, Ronny liked the visitors and patients who tipped him lavishly for watching their six-figure cars.

  The driver who had just turned in to the lot was handling the car erratically, a sure signal to Ronny of an emergency. He called the front desk and told Lucie to send out some staff. “There’s a problem coming in.”

  This was one of the things he could do: watch who was coming and going in a way that you never could in one of those giant hospitals in a metropolitan area.

  “He’s having a heart attack!” the driver shouted at Ronny as the car came to a stop in front of him.

  Ronny nodded. “Don’t move him. They are on their way out and—” He didn’t have time to finish when two orderlies and two nurses arrived with a stretcher.

  As soon they got the man out of the car and onto the stretcher, the driver threw the car into Reverse and screeched out of the parking lot.

  Ronny stared at the retreating Benz, trying to memorize the plates. He thought he had it, but he wasn’t sure. The car had been moving too fast. Who leaves someone in that condition at the hospital and then drives off? A criminal, Ronny thought. Or a drunk. Either way, he should call the police.

  The man was on the stretcher now. They were rushing him into the E.R.

  Jeeze.

  He’d seen a lot in the four years he had been working in Greenwich. Rich folk cried no different than poor ones. They sat down in the parking lot in the middle of the afternoon and curled up in a little ball and just wept. He’d seen kids, no older than his sister’s kids, riding up in fancy cars, stubbing out their cigarettes, running in to pay a visit to Mom or Dad and coming back out jabbering on their cell phones. He’d seen mothers bring in babies turning blue and ambulances delivering patients with every ailment and injury there was.

  But he had never seen a man, stark naked, with restraints on his ankles and wrists, wheeled into the emergency room at four o’clock in the afternoon. Hell, at any time.

  And he hoped that he never would again.

  Sixty-Three

  The front door was shut, but not locked. Opening it, I called out Daphne’s name. No response. Running, I went from the foyer, to the living room, through to the kitchen, into the den, the whole time calling her name. Over and over.

  “Daphne? Daphne? Daphne?”

  Silence.

  This was not the kind of house to leave unlocked. Besides, where was Daphne? She was an agoraphobic who had not left the house in six months, and yet she wasn’t home now, when our session was scheduled? And where was Nicky?

  Alone, any of those things would have concerned me, but together with seeing those horrific paintings, I was seriously alarmed.

  Had Daphne read the articles about the men who had been killed, men who she, too, had known from her more active days as a participant at the Scarlet Society, and used her talent with brushes and paint to give voice to her nightmares?

  Yes, that had to be it. It was the only possible explanation.

  I walked into the studio. Maybe Daphne was there, in a corner I hadn’t seen. Maybe she was wearing headphones and hadn’t heard me calling out.

  The light splashed through the windows onto the gruesome canvases.

  They were portraits of powerlessness.

  “Daphne? Daphne?”

  No answer.

  There were three doors in the studio besides the main one. The first led to a bathroom. Daphne wasn’t there. The second opened on a supply closet and she wasn’t in there, either. As I closed the door, I thought I heard something and turned, scanning the room. Static was coming from the monitor on the marble fireplace mantel. I moved closer to it. A monitor picking up noises from where? I carried it with me as I moved toward the third door.

  The first thing I saw was the red light that washed over the cabinets and tabletops. The smell was stringent and sharp. I hadn’t known what it was the first time I’d been to the house and I’d mistaken it for something else in Jordain’s office, but I understood now.

  Daphne had told me that she took photos of her subjects and worked from them, as well as working from life. Of course she would have a darkroom of her own.

  The ruby glow illuminated the bottles of chemicals and the plastic baths. The trays were empty, but there were at least a dozen photographs hanging from clips on a line running from one end of the narrow room to the other.

  Dozens of shots of a face. Devoid of everything but desperation.

  It was the face I recognized from the painting.

  Where was Daphne?

  I still had the monitor in my hand, and when it came to life I almost dropped it. The noise sounded like an animal in trouble. Or was it a human being moaning?

  My fear suddenly surged into panic. I tried to figure out what to do.

  The groans continued.

  I ran from the studio, back out to the foyer, looking, searching for some clue that would tell me where Daphne was—because by now I was sure she was at the other end of the monitor.

  Nothing in the living room. Nothing in the den. Nothing in the kitchen. But in the pantry off the kitchen there was a door flung open. Had it not been open, I never would have seen it—it was disguised to
look like shelves.

  Down a flight of steps.

  In my hand, the moans continued.

  Into a dark wine cellar where I was greeted with dank earth smells.

  Wine and vinegar, sour smells.

  And something else.

  Putrid human smells. Urine. Feces. Filthy flesh.

  In a house? In this house?

  “Daphne?”

  The moaning was no longer coming just from the monitor. Now I could hear it in the distance. It was down here with me. Not far.

  Gagging on the odors I was following, I continued calling out Daphne’s name and listening for the returning squawks. Could Daphne be making those sounds? There was more than one person moaning. Who was she with? Where were they?

  I went through another opened door, this one disguised as a shelf of wine bottles. Down three more steps. How low into the earth was I descending?

  The scent of human waste was overpowering me. For one second, I wondered if I was going to be able to go on. Breathe through your mouth, I thought. Don’t even allow yourself to smell this. I pulled out my cell. No signal. Damn.

  I took the last step and found myself in a large, windowless chamber. The center of the earth. The basement’s basement. And facing me, as my eyes adjusted to this deeper darkness, lurid proof that there is no limit to the depravity of the human mind.

  Sixty-Four

  Four men were lying tethered to hospital gurneys. I didn’t want the carnage to be real, but it was.

  Who brought these men here? And where was Daphne?

  Sweat rolled down my back. My legs shook so badly I had trouble standing.

  My mind was not functioning.

  Arrrg.

  I heard the sound and screamed. What was happening?

  The dead do not talk.

  They do not moan.

  But these men were moaning.

  In the gloom, I saw the bright red marks on the soles of their feet. Numbers painted—of course, painted—painted in red.

  2

  3

  4

  5

  There was no number 1.

  Why was that gurney empty?

  Where was number 1?

  The chorus of grunts entreated me. When I was an intern on the psychiatric ward at the hospital, I had seen faces like these. They were drugged, sedated.

  Thorazine.

  Damn it.

  None of us had thought of it—the men were not dead.

  Damn it.

  All of us—Jordain, Perez and I—had been looking for a serial killer. I’d studied everyone I met connected with the Scarlet Society for just one woman who exhibited any of the personality traits of a mass murderer: a psychopath with no regard for human life. A monster who killed for thrill and sexual satisfaction.

  We all knew the stats.

  Eighty-eight percent of serial killers are Caucasian men aged twenty to forty. More than seventy percent of them operate in a specific location or area. In a chart of serial killers’ childhood development characteristics created in 1990, the three most dominant behaviors included daydreaming, compulsive masturbation and isolation.

  They are dominant, powerful and controlling men. Who often have trouble perceiving the difference between themselves and God. Many believe that God is, in fact, telling them what to do.

  By keeping these men prisoner here, by drugging them and holding them against their will, someone had committed a grievous crime. But it was not the work of a serial killer. Not the work of any kind of killer at all. Every one of these men was blessedly alive.

  We had all been looking for the wrong kind of criminal. Of course we hadn’t found him.

  I moved among the men and, one by one, felt for their pulses and undid their gags, rushing, my fingers fumbling. There was too much to do at once. Triage was all about quick decisions. First, make sure everyone is alive. Check to see if anyone is in a life-threatening crisis. Then worry about their comfort.

  None of the men appeared to be in acute danger.

  Yes, sedated, but clearly not dehydrated or starved.

  And not dead.

  Not at all dead. I needed help now.

  I pulled out my cell phone again—there was still no signal. We were too deep in the bowels of the earth.

  I had to get to Jordain. As soon as possible.

  “I am going to go and get you help,” I said to the men, and then turned to go back up the dark, steep steps.

  Sixty-Five

  Nicky stood in the doorway, blocking my way, but he wasn’t looking at me. His mouth was open and he was as pale as the men lying before him. Except some of their paleness—that dead look we’d all seen in the photographs— was paint. I’d seen the palette and the brushes upstairs. Daphne was an artist. She had used her talents to create the impression of death, disguising their flesh tones with a light gray paint before she took their photos.

  As Nicky took in the scene, I knew, because I had just been through the process, that his brain was trying to understand and accept what he was seeing. It was clear from his reaction that he was not involved in this abomination.

  “We have to call the police,” I said. “Now. Quickly. Can you get me to a phone?”

  He didn’t move. A vein on his temple throbbed to the beat of some atonal tune.

  “Did Daphne do this?” His voice wavered with the question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How…” His voice broke.

  He was still in my way. “Nicky, we need to call the police. Please, let me go upstairs, let me call an ambulance. The police.”

  He was not listening. “My wife. Did she do this?”

  “I don’t know, Nicky.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “No, but every one of them is in danger. We are in danger. You and I. Daphne is, too. Please, we need to go upstairs and call the police.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No.”

  “You know she did this, don’t you?”

  I nodded my head.

  “And you know why she did this, don’t you?”

  I hadn’t been able to imagine why anyone would have done it when I’d first arrived in the dungeon. As I was bending over those living cadavers and listening to their hearts, it was impossible to guess. But now, seeing Nicky’s sad, sick eyes, I did.

  “Yes,” I said as I tried to get past him.

  “It was to scare me away from the society, once and for all. To make me think that if I kept going I would be next.”

  “Nicky!” I yelled at him. “Stop. Not now. We can talk about all of this once I call the police.” But we didn’t get anywhere. Daphne had found us.

  “Nicky?” Her voice was strong and certain and commanding. “What do you think you are doing down here?”

  Sixty-Six

  Officer Butler carried the enlargements of the fifth victim’s right thigh, and as she walked she flipped through them, watching as the area in question got larger and larger and larger until it filled the whole sheet.

  Her mouth opened in astonishment just as she crossed the threshold into the room where Jordain and Perez were waiting.

  “You are not going to believe this. It’s like he’s got a splotch of living flesh here. Is it possible the rest of him could be painted?” She looked up. Neither detective had even heard her.

  Jordain and Perez were on the speakerphone, listening and struggling into their jackets as the conversation hurried on.

  “Yes, yes, he has the number 1 written on both feet” came the disembodied male voice.

  “Okay. We’re on our way,” Jordain started for the door.

  “Greenwich Hospital, that’s what exit?” Perez shouted.

  “Exit three on I-95.”

  Butler hurried along with them, getting the story as they rushed through the halls, out of the station house and into Jordain’s car.

  “A man was brought to the emergency room at Greenwich Hospital about thirty minutes ago. Heart attack. Naked. And, li
ke you heard, with red numbers on the bottoms of his feet.”

  “Have they confirmed it’s Philip Maur?”

  “He’s conscious. Says that’s who he is. Wife is on her way up there, too.”

  Jordain pulled the car out of the parking spot.

  “There’s one odd thing,” Perez told Butler. “The doctors found streaks of grayish white paint on his legs.”

  “I know,” Butler said, handing him the photographs.

  Sixty-Seven

  Philip Maur’s wife was sitting by his bedside. The heart attack had been Thorazine-induced and had done only minor damage. She held her husband’s hand and wept silently, muttering the same five words over and over.

  “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.”

  Jordain and Perez stood in the doorway, finishing up their conversation with the doctor.

  “We won’t stay any longer than we have to.”

  “I’m going in with you, just as a precaution.”

  “That’s fine,” Perez said.

  “Do you know where you were?” Jordain asked after he and Perez had identified themselves and told Mr. Maur how happy they were that he was alive.

  Phil nodded. “At her house,” he said in a hoarse voice. He licked his lips. Once, and then again. His wife handed him a glass of water. He drank from it slowly. All the way down.

  Jordain was impatient but didn’t show it.

  “You were at her house?”

  “We were all at her house.”

  “All?”

  “Five of us. Tied up like…” His voice cracked and he started to cry. Damn. But he could no more stop the tears than he could let go of his wife’s hand.

  “You and four other men. Are all of them dead?”

  He shook his head. His shoulders heaved.

  The doctor moved in, ready to stop the interview if the monitor showed any change in the man’s heartbeat, but the pattern stayed consistent.