by J. R. Rain
I plucked the passport up and looked inside. Gerda’s unsmiling mug glared back. Her normally brunette hair was dyed platinum blonde now and was pulled back perhaps a little too tightly. Her lips were tight and hard. When she was drunk, and feeling a little horny, those tight buds would blossom into the softest of flowers. Reason enough to get her liquored up.
That’s what I thought. That’s just how my mind works. So shoot me.
The name, according to the passport, was Sabrina Lynn Butcher. A sense of humor. I always dug that in a psychopathic murderer.
Tabby picked up another passport, looked at it, and audibly gasped, unconsciously lowering her gun. I set down Gerda’s fake passport and gently took the second one from her hand.
There he was, the poor little tyke. But according to the passport his name was Charles Lane Butcher.
One other thing: Petey’s fine, curly hair was now dyed blond.
Very disturbing.
Even more so because now he looked a lot more like Amanda than he did me.
Tabby was shaking again, perhaps with a combination of emotions. If so, the most prevalent was rage. Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t look like a hard-nosed detective. She looked like a very wounded sister and aunt and granddaughter. Probably why detectives never worked on personal cases.
There were other documents there as well, one of them a visa to South Africa. Gerda had done some business in South Africa, and had traveled there at least two times. With the visa were credit cards and a driver’s license, all with her fake name. There was even a fake birth certificate with Petey’s fake name. All of which could be obtained if you knew the right people and had enough time and money. And being the daughter of a serial killer probably carried a little extra clout in the criminal underground.
Tabby was taking deep, shuddering breaths. She had lowered her gun and was staring down at the carpet. Tears ran down her cheeks.
I put a hand on her shoulder, and she spun around and swung the gun up to my face. Her lower lip was quivering. Tears and saliva pooled between her lips and teeth. Her eyes were red and wild, filled with heartbreaking pain.
“My grandmother was right,” she hissed, grabbing the passport out of my hand. “You brought this on Amanda, you asshole. You couldn’t keep your rotten goddamned rodent in your pants, and now look what you’ve done!”
She waved Petey’s fake passport in my face, then threw it back down onto the dining table. It landed hard, skidded, and toppled onto a seat cushion, where it lay accusingly open.
I wanted to wet myself. In fact, I had to make a pointed effort to control my bladder. I mean, that would have really caused one hell of a cleaning job on that carpet.
“Easy, Tabby. I never meant for this to happen. We’re on the same side. We’re beyond that now. Just move the gun away and let’s get Petey. This means he’s alive.”
She held the gun unwaveringly, inches in front of my forehead. She wasn’t entirely there. Her eyes shifted crazily for a moment, but then she blinked hard and lowered the gun.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry,” she said.
I was about to reach out and pat her shoulder, but then remembered she had been about to kill me three seconds earlier, and thought better of it, since touching her had started this in the first place. Don’t ever test a woman’s mood swings while she’s armed.
“Look, it’s all my fault, okay? Kill me later. You have my full permission. But later, okay?”
“Yeah. You sure do say you’re sorry a lot.”
“Had a hell of a lot of practice.”
When we fell silent, I realized how loudly we’d been talking, almost shouting. I heard a jay chattering from outside a nearby window, in one of the surrounding pines.
But that’s all I heard.
The digging had stopped.
Chapter Thirty-five
Tabby ducked into the stairwell and headed down, less cautious now. The stairwell must have been clean, because when she reached the downstairs she then moved over to a little French door that opened onto a back patio deck. She slithered next to it and peered cautiously out. Then rose to her tip toes. She looked at me and shook her head
I didn’t know if that meant she couldn’t see or if the coast was clear.
And as she shifted her weight to step away from the door, the wood flooring beneath her creaked. No, popped, like an old man’s knees. It was a horrendously loud sound from someone trying to remain silent. The groaning wood seemed to echo down through the house, reverberating along its sister planks of wood. Anyone even mildly alert for trouble would surely come to investigate the sound.
Maybe with a shovel, maybe with a machete, maybe with an army of golems.
Tabby pressed herself against the wall. Standing at the head of the stairs, I had nothing to press myself against. I held my breath until the ground started to shift under my feet. Then I took little gasps through the corner of my mouth, the hot air whispering along my cheeks. Sweat poured down my brow, into my eyes, and down into my shirt collar. The taste of peanut-butter bile was strong in my mouth. I needed a drink, something to cut the cloying mucous and dull all those troublesome senses.
We waited a full minute, or perhaps it was a few minutes. I wasn’t exactly looking at my watch. At any rate, the angle of the sun barely changed as it splashed through the open French door and spread in bright splotches across the Berber carpet, catching some of the blood and illuminating it like fresh ribbons. As if a flesh parade had come through there, and the bloody ribbons were the aftermath.
Tabby and I watched each other, although she occasionally flicked her gaze toward the door. But there was nothing coming toward it. Then again, someone could have come up through the side gate and in through the front door. I peered back through the kitchen of horror, but my angle was limited. Still, there didn’t seem to be anyone coming from that direction.
And then the digging resumed. But the digging sounded softer somehow, less of the harsh cutting of metal through hard-packed dirt and more of the softer hiss of metal meeting less resistance.
Tabby gestured with her head and put her hand on the elegant handle to the French door. I hurried down the stairs, not wanting to be left alone.
Wanting in on the action, I mean.
Chapter Thirty-six
I kicked something on the final step, and it flopped with a moist, leathery sound. I cringed, expecting a flap of scalp or maybe a human glove.
Tabby paused, bent over, and plucked up a battered and bloodied wallet. She flipped it open with one hand, keeping her gun trained on the door, and held the wallet up for my viewing, her intentions obvious enough: Do you know this guy?
A California State driver’s license was in a clear plastic sleeve. A man named Duncan Smith, middle-aged, a little poochy looking, the kind who’d probably be easy prey for a woman’s smile and tale of woe. Broken-down dishwasher, TV remote acting up, you name it. He’d probably seen it play out in a porn movie once and thought it was real life. That was dangerous, especially in California.
I noted with chagrin that he was a certified organ donor. It looked like Gerda had fulfilled his final wish.
Even poochy, even gullible, he didn’t deserve to be slaughtered.
And neither did Amanda.
“Born victim,” I said.
“We all are,” Tabby said.
We listened. More sounds of soft scooping. The thud of dirt landing.
Tabby raised a finger and began counting down from three.
What the hell was she doing?
I dared not say anything. Her fingers showed two, then one. I needed to use the bathroom or the bar or anything except this door.
She took a deep breath, yanked down on the handle, flung the door outward, and jumped onto the patio, gun pointed with both hands. “Freeze, bitch!”
I’m not sure if that particular maneuver was in the hostage handbook.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The hunched figure, back to us, was alone in the yard. The yard
was fenced in, meaning no neighbors were likely to see us. At the rear of the yard was a gardening shed, opened so that tools showed.
Next to the pit was a small mound of freshly turned dirt, and next to the mound was a baby seat. The seat was turned around, its back to us.
“Your hands,” Tabby shouted, with enough authority that I started to raise mine before I remembered whose side I was on. “I want to see your hands or you take a bullet in the back of the head.”
The figure with its back to us, draped in a multicolored woolen overcoat, raised both hands. In the left hand was a shovel. I noticed the predominant color on the multi-colored overcoat was red. Blood red.
“Drop the shovel!” Tabby’s voice nearly cracked with huskiness.
The person dropped the shovel, which landed in the pit, and then raised both hands again.
Mirroring the movement of the person standing next to it, the baby raised its two tiny little fists in the air. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so horrific.
Petey....
I also noticed something else. From my angle—and I was a tall guy—I could see down into the pit. And I could see the back of a hand slumped up against the dirt wall. The hand was missing an index finger.
“Turn around,” said Tabby. Although she barked the order, she had lowered her voice once she saw that the person outside the pit had cooperated so far. It looked like this was going to end peacefully.
The figure standing before the pit turned slowly around. I first recognized the sharp profile, the hard-set jaw, and then the fresh platinum hair.
I was relieved that it was Gerda, but I also felt a rush of heartburn that made the peanut-butter barf seem smooth by comparison. God, the bitch was still beautiful, even after the long absence, and the changes, and the fact that she’d kidnapped my baby and embarked on a killing spree.
Her angular cheeks, sharp nose and narrow jaw were all touched with flecks of blood. One big glob was in the hollow of her right cheek and had long since dried to a cracking scab. She was standing in the shadow of the house, although the trees above were still touched with the setting sun. Her eyes were hooded in darker shadows, and we were spared the reptilian stare that had chilled my marriage to a deep freeze. It was the same face, minus the blood, she wore while squashing spiders with her thumb. Didn’t just squash them, ground them into furry-legged mush.
Aside from random outbursts of temper, there was always a stillness to Gerda, a quietude that bespoke of a calculating nature. Or an emptiness. Now she stood before us with her forearms raised at ninety-degree angles to her upper arms. She didn’t move or even seem to breathe.
Waiting. Like a goddess of the damned, bored with life and death.
I looked at Tabby and the hard set of her jaw, thinking her teeth might shatter. No doubt she was flipping crime-scene photographs in her head, wondering whether Gerda deserved the mercy of a bullet.
I ached to go to Petey, who was now pumping his little arms in the air, fists balled. I played my own photographs, and though his arms looked fine, wondered if Gerda had done anything to the parts we couldn’t see. Like maybe carved a swastika on his tiny forehead or put spiders in his diaper. I was afraid to move before Tabby ordered the script of how this would all play out.
“Hello, Albert,” Gerda said, focusing on me and ignoring Tabby and the gun. “What’s new?”
I was struck again with Gerda’s fierce beauty. No one ever said that Gerda wasn’t one hell of a striking woman. She was still slender, almost gaunt. Her coat was open and I could see the hard line of her rib cage under her blood-spattered T-shirt and the hint of upper abdominal muscles.
Her blue jeans were almost entirely covered in blood. A strong wind materialized and whipped her platinum blonde hair across her cheeks. A strand of the hair got caught in the sweat shimmering on her forehead and caught in the still-drying blood. She made no move to push the hair out of her way.
She must have been strong to drag Mister Poochy to his untimely planting. Unless she’d had help.
Max-sized help.
The wind came again, and we all stood there quietly, watching Gerda’s straight hair blow about her like a tattered wind gauge. No one said anything. I don’t think anyone knew where to begin. To say we caught Gerda red-handed would have been an obvious and easy pun. She made no excuses and gave no explanations.
“Blood sacrifice is so intoxicating,” Gerda said, as if calmly discussing a bad hand at the bridge club. “But I guess you know all about ‘intoxicating,’ don’t you, Albert?”
“Move away from the baby,” Tabby ordered.
“My baby,” I said, as if I were the one with a gun.
“Mine now,” Gerda said. She stood there watching us. Perhaps calculating. Perhaps empty and devoid of anything human, or any care for life. Actually, I felt as if she were watching me, although I couldn’t tell, for her eyes were still hidden in deepening shadows. Perhaps it was the angle of her head. Or perhaps I was imagining it.
“Why, Gerda?” asked Tabby. Gone was the cop, replaced by the heartbroken sister. Her voice shook. “You were her friend.”
Gerda said nothing.
“You were the entire family’s friend. We all liked you.”
Save for her hair dancing in the wind, the woman standing in front of us did not move. Her voice seemed to emanate from stilled lips. “I know how to be liked when I wish. Right, Albert?”
I could have sworn she licked her lips in a lascivious gesture, the first sign of movement, and it was a serpent’s ploy, sinuous, seductive, and very deadly.
A cloud moved in front of the sun, throwing the back yard into deeper shadows. But somehow the shadows revealed Gerda’s face to be sharper, more angular, and harder than ever. A little foot kicked out from the baby seat, followed by the soft mew of something little and innocent.
“Petey loved you,” Tabby said. “Now you’ve killed his mother.”
“Save it, Tabitha,” I said. “You might as well be beating a confession out of a brick.”
Tabby raised the gun to probably head height. “Then maybe I will make her talk. We can always call it self defense. Blood on the shovel, she rushed us, what else could we do?”
“You shoot her in the head and you get nothing. Just a rush of revenge and then the hard reality of an aftermath where none of us lives happily ever after.”
“Might be worth it.”
“And you get time for murder or manslaughter. And what about Petey? With just me around to raise him?”
“Dear God.” Tabby lowered the gun slightly but still held it firmly. “You’re right.”
She lowered the gun a little more and pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafeningly loud. My initial reaction was to cover my ears, but it was already much too late by the time my palms got to them. I jumped, Petey yelped, Gerda jerked and stumbled back, but damn if she didn’t stay up. Maybe she was high on drugs and witchy herbs and funny mushrooms. A hole appeared on Gerda’s thigh, followed instantly by the fresh gleam of blood. This time it was her blood, but it all looked the same after a while.
She didn’t move her head or lower her hands. She didn’t cry out, though she whistled a little when she sucked in a lot of air. Her left leg was quivering. She favored her right, but other than that, you’d never have guessed this woman had just been shot. In fact, she didn’t actually seem to even care that she had been shot.
I was fairly certain that Tabby shouldn’t have shot Gerda, and that I had witnessed what some might call police brutality or reckless endangerment. I would also admit that if Gerda had indeed sliced Amanda’s throat open, she deserved the shot to the leg. Still, I felt that I needed to stop Tabby from taking cheap pot shots at my ex-wife. No matter what, I was a firm believer in justice. If Gerda was the killer, then we needed to let the court system punish her or send her off to the psychiatric ward for good. I did not want to participate in a witch hunt, especially for a woman I once loved, even if she really was a witch.
> I eased over next to Tabby. “You can’t do this. You’re better than this. Please, no more shooting.”
“You’re right. That was very unprofessional of me to shoot a murderer in the leg unprovoked. They would probably have my badge, wouldn’t they?”
I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, probably.”
“Well, fuck it.”
She squeezed off another shot. This time Gerda went down, pitching forward. I was pretty sure this next shot got her in the same leg, perhaps three or four inches from the last. Both shots hit meat, and not bone. I would have heard the bone crack, I’m sure.
This was getting out of hand. I considered wrestling the gun out of Tabby’s hand, but then figured she was probably stronger than me. Plus I didn’t know how many bullets that thing held. She might have a few to spare for me, too.
Now I almost wished Gerda would actually say something to Tabby, anything to stop the unprovoked attacks. I was weirdly fascinated by Gerda’s pain threshold. I mean, didn’t it hurt like hell to be shot in the leg? Twice? And yet she was now lying face down in the freshly scooped dirt, clawing quietly at it with her soiled fingers. Not even a whimper.
Then again, Gerda had never been much of a complainer. From her periods to the time we had been sunburned on our honeymoon and still had rolled in the blankets all night. Not to mention she’d actually married me in the first place. Yeah, I guess the woman did have a high threshold for pain.
Tabby stepped forward, holding the gun before her. It was trained, as far as I could tell, on the back of Gerda’s head. I was not going to stand by and allow an execution, especially that of my ex-wife, no matter how horrible she was. I moved over to Tabby and pushed her gun down.
“No more shooting,” I said.
“Okay,” she said with reluctance, the faraway glaze leaving her eyes. “You’re right. I should really stop now. But is it wrong that it feels so right?”