The Serialist

by David Gordon

  “I do,” I said. I thought about how that was the weird thing, how we’d all come to know each other so well in this short, weird time. How long had it been? Six weeks?

  “Hey,” I said. “When we got shot at, out in Brooklyn?”

  “Yeah. It rings a bell.”

  “What date was that?”

  “Date?”

  “Yeah. Do you know?”

  “The fourteenth of May.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I got my period the next day, and I was worried. It was late.”

  “Oh,” I said. I raised my eyes to hers, but she glanced away. I went to the calendar on the wall. I counted under my breath, tracing my finger up and down the dates. Dani looked at me, dubiously. “It wasn’t Flosky who shot at us,” I told her.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because she was upstate. In court. Arguing for Clay, remember?”

  “Fuck,” Dani said.

  “Yeah. Fuck is right.”

  “Who do you think it was, then? Who else wants you dead?”

  I thought it over. “No one really cares that much.”

  She rolled her eyes, like Claire would. “Seriously, it has to be someone else who didn’t want that case solved. Someone else was afraid of what we might dig up.”

  “That’s it. You got it.” I grabbed her hand without thinking and she didn’t pull away.

  “What did I get, Harry?” She looked excited.

  “You said dig up. Someone didn’t want us to dig up the heads and see that there were only three. When we know who’s missing, we’ll know who shot at me.”

  She took her hand back and started pacing. “Who do you think it is?”

  “I pick Toner. Husband Number One.”

  “You think his wife is the one missing? Why? Just because he doesn’t like you? Don’t be so touchy.” She laughed, and I wished I could take her hand again.

  “Scoff if you want,” I said, “but maybe that’s why he hates me. He did everything he could to stop me from the start.”

  “But why? What is he hiding?” Now she sat on the table, cross-legged, and I began pacing the floor.

  “Think about it,” I said. “Maybe the reason Clay didn’t bury her head was that he didn’t kill her. He never even mentions her. Just the other three. But he did say he wasn’t going to kill them at first. He only did that because his mother caught him and nagged him into it. He said he shot a couple before his mom found out.”

  “Shot a couple of girls?”

  “No, I mean with a camera,” I said. “Hold on.” I couldn’t wait anymore. I went into the bathroom and shut the door halfway. Finally, relief. “Look,” I yelled, “how come there were no postmortem photos of her? Just living ones? The cops said because she was last, but what if she was the first? He was working there, meets her, she’s a wannabe actress, he has no intention of killing these models so he has no reason to worry about the connection, maybe it will even butter her up, get him in with the boss, so he shoots her. Photographs her, I mean. Then the murders start. Later, Toner sees the news, the warnings, the sketch, watch out for a photographer trying to recruit pretty girls, in Queens.” I flushed and quickly washed my hands. There was no towel so I dried them on my pants. “He puts it together, he sees his chance to get rid of the wife he’s sick of or who he married just for her money. So he kills her, copies the MO he read about in the paper. Chops her up. And it’s done. Everything is good until I come along.” I opened the door and stepped back into the kitchen. “Is that crazy? What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a fucking pain in the ass,” Toner said. He was standing behind Dani, with one hand over her mouth and the other pressing a gun to her head. She blinked at me. The little dog stood in the doorway blinking too. He sniffed Toner’s shoe and Toner nudged him away.

  “Hey,” I said, putting my hands out. “Come on.”

  “Come on what?” Toner asked. “I fucking warned you. I practically begged you. Jesus, it’s your own fault.”

  “Look, this place is crawling with cops. You can’t get away with it. It’s over.”

  “No. It was over. You dug it up. Now when I bury you, it will be over again.”

  Dani stared at me, pleadingly, like Claire had. Her eyes teared up. The poodle settled down on the linoleum between Toner and me, listening intently.

  “They’ll know your wife’s head isn’t there,” I said. “They’ll figure it out.”

  “Sure. And they’ll assume Clay just buried her someplace else, or fucking made an ashtray out of it. Who knows? He’s a goddamn nut. Without you bugging the shit out of everyone, they’ll have no reason to work the rest out. And if they do, it will take months. I’ve got enough socked away. I can leave the country. The only thorn left in my ass is you. And the stripper here. So open that door there, and turn on the light.”

  “Listen . . . ,” I began, though I had nothing to say.

  “Do it.” He pressed the gun hard against her skull. Her tears ran into his hand. I did what he said. I opened the door and found a switch. There was a staircase to the basement and a dim hanging bulb. The dog immediately dashed down and began exploring the steps.

  “Now go down,” Toner said. “Very carefully.”

  Hands up, I made my way downstairs, trying not to trip over the dog. It was a small square room of crumbling concrete with a dirt floor. It was musty, and despite the warm day, it was chilled. There was a boiler and pipes and some stacks of junk that if you knew to look you realized had once belonged in a darkroom. There was a heavy black curtain over the stairs that Toner drew as he came down, pushing Dani before him. She had one arm bent behind her and her face was red. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked scared.

  “See,” Toner said. “Nice and private. No one will hear a thing.”

  There was a flicker, like a silver fish in a pond, and before I had time to register what she was doing, Dani’s arm came out from behind her back. Her switchblade was in her hand. The blade flashed out and she cut Toner across the arm that was holding her mouth. Toner grunted and pulled his arm away, and Dani screamed for help.

  I charged toward them, trying for the gun hand, and then there was another, much brighter flash, and the booming sound of a shot echoed in the small room. The dog yipped loudly and ran up and down the steps. Dani gasped and slumped between us, as if Toner and I were both helping to hold her up. I didn’t know where she was hit or where the gun was. Toner tried to push free. Dani’s head rolled on my shoulder and I felt her press the knife in my hand.

  The gun fired again. This time I heard the bullet ring as it hit the boiler. Now Dani moaned softly as if she were crying in her sleep. I gripped the knife and with my other hand I dug my way through the grappling limbs, pushing past Dani’s limp body toward Toner. It all happened very slowly, like trying to budge on a packed subway. I felt the dog brush my feet. I found Toner’s chest. Then with all my strength, I pushed the blade in, past his open sport coat, through his blue dress shirt, into his skin and the flesh and bone underneath. He grunted sharply, like a bark, and struggled, bucking against us. I leaned in harder. Blood squirted out, hitting my face, and he squirmed away. Dani slipped free and crumpled to the floor. Blood streamed from her neck and the dog jumped up on her chest and began to lap it up, in short quick licks, like from a fountain.

  I forced my way forward, over Dani, and now Toner and I were face to face. He looked right at me, an inch or two away, and his gaze just seemed curious, surprised, whether by me or by death I can’t say. Blood rolled down my forearms and seeped between our clothes. My fingers were slippery and I had to grip the knife hard. I looked back into his eyes and saw the last light leave them as they went still. Then I drove the knife all the way in, right up to the handle. I stabbed him straight through the heart.

  PART FIVE

  Epilogue: July 9, 2009

  78

  We sat in a kind of theater, on bleacher seats, staring at a window in a cinder bl
ock wall painted green. Beyond the glass hung drapes of the thick fabric type I associate with chain hotels. Back there, Darian Clay was being prepared for death.

  Lethal injection is a four-step process. Strapped down, with sensors attached to his chest, he would have two needles inserted into his veins, one as a backup, and connected to long tubes. At first a saline solution would be fed through, to keep the lines open. Then, when the warden gave the signal, the drapes would be pulled. Next, Clay would be injected with sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, which would put him to sleep. Then flows pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the entire muscle system and stops his breathing. Finally, the flow of potassium chloride stops the heart. Death is from anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest, suffered while the condemned person is unconscious. We think.

  The Jarrels and Mr. Hicks were there, sitting in the front row. This time they all shook my hand and expressed shock about Toner. They asked about Dani, whom they had previously dismissed as a drug-addled hussy. I told them that she’d been lucky. After Toner fell dead, I had dragged her up the stairs and into the kitchen, where I saw the blood draining from her neck. Screaming for help, I pressed down as hard as I could, feeling her life slide helplessly though my clenched fingers. Fortunately there were a dozen cops and medical techs within a few yards. They stabilized her quickly and a small motorcade raced to the hospital.

  She would be OK, eventually. Toner’s bullet had passed through her throat, missing the jugular by millimeters, just nicking the carotid artery, and doing some small damage to the spine on exiting. But the surgery was long and the rehabilitation would be painful. In a moment of delirium, standing over her bed, I had asked her to move in with me. Why not? I thought. Maybe this was what I needed, a sexually depraved girl who never went anywhere unarmed. But she passed on my offer. Her father and stepmom had flown in for a bedside reconciliation and she had already agreed to move in with them and finish her rehab in a special facility out in Arizona before eventually returning to school, although she no longer wanted to be a shrink. She’d had enough of crazy people.

  Townes was at the execution as well, sitting with the families, shaking hands with the reporters and local law enforcement big shots who made up the rest of the audience. He had turned in his resignation and was developing a possible TV series based on his adventures. We joked a bit about my working for him someday, but then a reporter grabbed him and he went to pose for a photo. We had decided to like each other at last, but now that the case was done, we had nothing left to say. Unless someone else I knew got murdered, it was unlikely we’d meet again.

  It was a nice day at least. If it had been, say, a stormy night, I would have been tempted to lie, just to avoid the cliché. Instead it was bright summer, and everything was alive. The air itself was thick and soft, and I felt it against my skin, as if it were pressing back for a moment before yielding. On the train ride up, the trees along the tracks had been waving, and the flowers by the station were open so wide they seemed dizzy, like cartoon drunks with their tongues hanging out. Even along the road to the prison, all blacktop and concrete and fence, I saw a stand of glorious sunflowers, defiant, blazing, tall. Like our own honor squad, ready to fire away. All of this, one wanted to say, is what Clay will be missing out on, forever. That is his punishment. Each of these lost moments. But he didn’t seem reluctant to kiss this world good-bye. For his last meal he’d ordered rare steak and lobster and chocolate cake, which he shared with the guards. Then he read a magazine for a while and fell asleep, apparently with no trouble. I don’t know what the magazine was. I like to imagine it was an old Raunchy.

  When we arrived at the prison gate, we encountered a small group of about twenty or thirty protesters, some with signs. It was an odd mix: aged hippies, a nun, two Buddhist monks, both white with shaved heads, a few young people, earnest and hairy, and among them, standing quietly, without a sign, was Theresa Trio, whom I hadn’t seen or heard from since that day on the bench. I waved, but she didn’t seem to see me, and then the gate rolled shut.

  I had however heard from Claire, at last. I’d gotten an email a few nights before, after I’d pretty much given up hope:

  Hey Sibylline,

  What’s up? Remember me? Sorry I didn’t call or write to you. Of course I wasn’t mad. You saved me. I think I was scared. Not of you. Never. You were my best friend!! I think the world just suddenly got scary and I had to go home, go back to being just a kid, which is what I guess I am. I’m out in Lawn Guyland for the summer at my dad’s place at the beach. I hate it but it’s OK. Then I’m going to boarding school in Switzerland. Which is weird I know but I’m kind of psyched. Is that totally lame of me? Maybe I’ll hate it who knows. Then maybe I will sneak out and come stay with you. Will you still let me? Thanks for letting me hang around so much. Thanks for everything you did. Thanks for everything you didn’t do too. Thanks for taking such good care of me. Sorry I can’t take care of you anymore. But you don’t need me. Not really. Thanks for pretending. XOXO C.

  At five the warden gave the signal and the curtain rolled back. Darian Clay was strapped to a black table with arm extensions, in a kind of crucifixion pose, or as if in some S&M massage chair. The IVs ran from his arms into a hole in the wall, behind which unseen technicians were controlling the drips. Though I knew this hideout was the modern equivalent of the axman’s hood, it still struck me as inane. Were they frightened of having the dead man know who killed him? Did they think he would come back for revenge from beyond the grave to haunt them or wait for them in hell? If so, would ducking behind a wall really fool a ghost?

  Clay looked around, smiled at us, and lifted his fingers in a little wave. Everyone stirred nervously and I looked at the row in front of me. Mrs. Jarrel’s hair was thinning. Mr. Jarrel had dandruff on the shoulders of his suit. For some reason, these two details made me unbearably sad. This isn’t going to help, I thought. Nothing would ever make these people feel better, except perhaps the slow dulling of time and the sweetener of some new small joys. And as the memory faded, that fading would in itself be a further sadness. And although the crime was solved and justice done, the mystery, the real mystery, would never be explained. Perhaps this was already dawning on them, even now, as they sat watching, holding hands. The warden asked Clay if he had any last words. He nodded and muttered something. The warden frowned.

  “The prisoner’s final statement is, ‘No hard feelings.’” He cleared his throat. “ ‘I forgive you all.’” Then he quickly spoke into the intercom and gave the command. The anesthetic flowed into Clay’s bloodstream. He responded almost immediately, lifting his head like he’d been startled, and then slowly lowering it. His body seemed to relax. Then, as if fighting the urge to sleep, he craned his head again and looked at us. He looked at the Jarrels and at Hicks. They looked away. He looked at Townes, who stared straight back. Clay nodded at him. Then he looked at me, and I looked back, trying as best I could to see something, some message from his side, whatever there was to see. He smiled, I think at me. But who knows? He was pretty high by then. Then he shut his eyes and his head fell back onto the table.

  The warden gave the signal and the next drug washed in, paralyzing his muscles, and we could see his fingers twitch and stop. We could see his chest rise and fall and then not rise again. Then they released the final drug and stopped the one thing still moving, the heart. We stared. A few minutes later a doctor entered the room and, at 5:12, declared him dead. I got up and left. I didn’t wait to say good-bye to anyone. I didn’t want to see their faces when they turned around, or show my own.

  79

  I cleared security and walked outside. Clay’s death had just been announced. A small group of protesters were praying in small clutches, holding hands or lighting candles. Others were already loading their signs into their cars. I’m sure it was difficult for them. No one was really sorry he was dead. Theresa was standing apart from the group. She smiled when she saw me and gave a short wave.

  “Hey,
” she said. “I was wondering if you’d be here.”

  “Clay invited me. Weird as it sounds.”

  “I guess I felt like I had to see it through too,” she said. We began walking together toward the parking lot.

  “What about Flosky?” I asked. “If she ends up here, will you come and protest?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes met mine briefly and then turned back to her feet. “If I don’t stand by my convictions, who am I?”

  Me, I thought, but I just said, “Good for you.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “What will you do?”

  “I have no convictions that I’m aware of. Only trials.”

  “No,” she smiled. “The book.”

  “There is no book. The only hook was the confession, that it was a memoir in his own words. No one cares now. And in case you didn’t notice, he’s not exactly big news anymore.”

  “Oh well,” she said.

  “Oh well,” I repeated. “Now a Flosky book might have a little traction, but I think I’ve had it with real life for a while. It’s a major pain in the ass.” She laughed, and I continued, “I’d better write something quick, though. At this rate I’ll wind up teaching junior high.”

  We walked through another gate and were in the parking lot, where the prison employees parked their cars. Some of these people would end up serving more years here than the convicts.

  “Hey, I have an idea,” she said, brightening and touching my arm. Was that the first time? “Why don’t you turn it into a vampire book? Like a vampire serial killer. Or wait, even better, a vampire cop who ends up having to hunt down a serial killer.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That might work.”

  “I think it would be great,” she said. “I mean, it’s a great start and that’s probably the hardest part, right? The beginning?”

  “Not really.”