“You are the only person I have ever known who finds what I do so fucking interesting,” Nick said.
At least Hylas didn’t lecture him about rape, arrest, disease and all manner of other bullshit like Nancy did. Nick had only told Hylas a few stories over the years; he kept that sort of thing to himself for the most part, but once in a while he’d get really high or drunk (or both) and end up telling Hylas a few. Hylas had always been the most attentive listener. Nick thought Hylas romanticized prostitution in his mind though he did allow that maybe Hylas’s interest in it was because of the stories the job yielded. Hylas loved a good story.
“It is interesting though,” Hylas said. “Not legal or, well, safe, but it is one thousand and one percent fascinating. So, will you tell me one?”
“All right,” Nick said. “Let me think.”
Hylas sat down in the other desk chair and resumed his slow spinning while Nick rummaged through his memory banks. He finally came up with one and leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
“Okay,” he said. Hylas stopped spinning and turned to face him, eyes bright with interest. “Did I ever tell you the one about the guy with the teddy bear?”
“No.” Hylas was starting to smile as he rolled his chair closer to the desk. His knees banged against the metal and he laughed then settled in, elbows on the edge of the desk, chin propped in his hands. “Do go on.”
“One weekend I went down to New Orleans…”
An hour and a half later, Nick departed from the newspaper office with a smile. He left behind a satisfied—and slightly appalled—Hylas who was furiously googling what Nick had told him about the improper care and treatment of plush toys.
“That is so gross!” Hylas called after him as the door swung shut. “Oh, my God! Who does this shit? I have to call Tobias and tell him.”
Nick ducked his head and laughed all the way to his truck. He had about forty-five minutes before the library closed. It wasn’t a lot of time to do what he wanted, but he’d have to make the best of it. He was off work the next day as well and planned to go back and check into things more then.
At the library, they showed him to a computer. He wasted the next few minutes clicking the Internet Explorer icon and wondering why nothing was happening.
“Double click, mister. You have to do it quick, like click-click,” said a little girl on his left who couldn’t have been older than eight. Her hair was in pigtails, for Christ’s sake.
Nick did as she said, thanked her and then berated himself for being so dumb as he typed in what he was looking for: Michigan homicides. That produced entirely too many results, ranging from accidental homicide to hit-and-run to gangland shootings in Detroit. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the table and tried to think how to word his next attempt at a search.
He tried “Michigan animal attacks. Violent.”
The second result down had a headline that read, “Fourth Attack Rocks Small Town”.
Nick clicked the link and read the article, stomach churning and muscles trembling. For three years there had been a string of violent animal attacks all over a small county in Michigan near the Upper Peninsula. The killings had been so vicious, so horrific that they’d made national headlines. Nick had missed the entire thing while he was in prison. There had been a television in the rec room, but no one ever watched the news. No one in there had cared about what was going on in the outside world.
Nick clicked around some more and read two more articles before the librarian called out that the “liberry” would close in five minutes. Nick winced at the mispronunciation, it was the only grammatical peeve he had and for a librarian to say it was particularly awful. He tuned her out and read through the last article he had found, Things Quiet All Summer. Too quiet, some locals say. It was a follow-up piece on the homicides that gave an overview of the crimes, the names of the victims and quoted experts who theorized about the abrupt cessation of the crimes.
“No, no, no,” Nick said under his breath. He rubbed his hand over his mouth as he skimmed over the final body count: 35.
The last murder in Michigan had been of a young man, Marcus Taylor. Marcus had been found torn apart inside his trailer home. The back door, to which there were no steps, had been ripped halfway off its hinges, gouges in the metal so deep they revealed the thin insulation inside. The friend who found Marcus said the gouges in the door had been there prior to the murder. Marcus had told his friend about them and had later shown them to him. A police report had been filed and at the local P.D.’s suggestion, Marcus had stayed with his friend for three days following the encounter.
He had been killed the same night he returned home. Marcus Taylor had been clawed and bitten so badly it had taken dental records to make a positive I.D.
The date of the homicide was July eighteenth. In the back of his mind, Nick heard Crash telling him, I’ve been here since the end of July or thereabouts.
Nick stared at the screen, reading the information over and over. He had forgotten about the library closing, he wasn’t even aware of sitting in the chair at the moment. When someone tapped his shoulder, he jumped and cried out as he stumbled out of his seat, half-tripping over his own feet in his haste. He was certain it was Crash standing behind him, grinning his maniac’s grin. He would lean close to Nick’s face and say, What do you think of my handiwork?
It was one of the librarians; a slim, pretty black girl with huge dark eyes. She smiled at him and said, “I apologize, sir, but you really have to go now; the library is closing.”
So she wasn’t Miss. Liberry. Nick couldn’t even smile back at her, even with the random thought in his head about the liberry. He swallowed and nodded his head then gestured at the computer. “Don’t I have to—”
“No, sir, it’s fine,” she said. “I can shut down the machine.”
“Okay,” Nick said. He swallowed again and rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans. His palms were clammy and damp; once he noticed that, he realized his face was the same. A cool trickle of sweat ran down the hollow of his spine and itched its way under the waist of his jeans. He needed to get the hell out of the library and go home. To his trailer. Nick was sickeningly, painfully aware that he lived in a glorified tin can; that he was a sitting duck in his own home.
He could not stop thinking about the claw marks on Nancy’s front door.
The librarian was still watching him, a frown line forming between her tidy eyebrows. She laid a hand on his arm, cool and dry, comforting though Nick instinctively started to pull away from her. He told himself to stop acting like a mental patient and managed to hold still.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He gently pulled his arm away from her and mumbled something about how he was just tired. “No, I… um… I’m okay,” Nick said when he found his voice again. “I’m just gonna… I need to… I’m leaving now. Sorry for the bother.”
He turned then and bolted out of the library before she could say another word.
Outside, the sun shone bright and warm, the air smelled like sweet olive and freshly cut grass. It was all cold and colorless to Nick. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, but nothing he thought made any sense. The inside of his head was a jumbled mess of news articles and mental pictures of what those bodies had to have looked like. Crash presided over it all, giggling to himself and covered in blood, holding Wes’s cell phone case in his hand like a goddamn scepter.
It had to be Crash. Had to be. But it couldn’t be either because everything—even what Crash had told him at dinner that night—said it was an animal. Nick could even grudgingly accept that maybe it was a bear or a large panther because that was what the evidence said. His steadfast stance on it being a man had wavered over the months and he’d thought it through. It was improbable that an animal would do such things, but not impossible.
It still left a question though: How did it get inside the victims’ houses?
“I cannot do this right now,�
�� Nick said as he sat in his truck, hands gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. “This is stupid. I’m stupid. He’s a freak, that’s all.”
And Crash was the freakiest of freaks. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that he had heard about where Wes was attacked (Nick knew he hadn’t told him) and walked over to the scene one day. He only lived about four miles away from where it happened; it was an easy walk and an even shorter drive. Nick had gone out there, too, looking for Wes’s cell phone. Crash had beat him to it was all and since he was a fucker, it was perfectly reasonable to think that Crash had found it and taken the case from it. He’d probably ditched the phone afterward and called it a good haul.
Nick cranked the truck and told himself that made sense—and it did make sense. Perfect, logical sense. Crash was a sleaze, but he wasn’t a psycho killer.
As he drove down the short street the library was on, something else occurred to Nick though. He’d heard the phrase “blood running cold” before, but until that moment it had never happened to him. He shivered all over as he braked a little too hard at the stop sign and the truck rocked.
Crash lived close to all of the victims, every last one of them.
25
Nick sat on his couch, staring at his blank television screen and drinking beer. He should call the police, but every time the thought crossed his mind it felt like a billion burrowing worms began writhing beneath his skin. The cops might take into consideration anything he told them; they were desperate for leads, but once they looked into Nick and found out his history he’d be tossed into the ”waste of resources” pile of tips. No one listened to ex-cons and they damn sure didn’t listen to ex-cons who’d had a messy break-up with the person they were reporting.
It would come off as the spiteful fallout from a lover’s quarrel and Nick would look like a lying asshole. Nick didn’t like cops anyway; he still had bad dreams about the last time he had been arrested. The fat fuck’s knee in the small of his back and the screaming pain in his shoulder as it was partially dislocated.
If he didn’t call the cops though then no one would ever properly look into Crash, no one would ever say yay or nay about whether or not he was a homicidal maniac. Nick was still having a difficult time believing that, but the coincidences were impossible to deny. Even if it was Crash, Nick still had no idea how he was doing it. Crash didn’t own a dog and damn sure not a bear or panther, unless he kept the thing hidden somewhere; maybe in a pen out in the woods. The only other possibility Nick could come up with was that Crash was making the murders look like animal attacks somehow.
Claw marks were probably easy to fake, but Nick also thought the M.E. would have noticed that the claw marks weren’t made by real claws if that had been the case. Then again, Crash was bound to have picked up tidbits of forensic knowledge and could have made notes on what to do and what not to do. A how-to manual for faking being eaten by the thing from Predator. However, while claw marks were (maybe) easy to fake well enough they could fool a medical examiner, bite marks were a different story.
Playing with the theory that Crash had also managed to fake that left the question of how. It might be a simple enough task to counterfeit the puncture wounds made by teeth, therefore leaving impressions behind in the flesh, but the articles he’d read about the murders in Michigan said the victims had been partially eaten in some instances. If it was the same doer in both the Michigan case and the Sparrow Falls case then the newest victims had probably suffered the same fate. That didn’t entail merely leaving impressions of teeth behind, that involved actually making it look like bites had been taken, chunks of flesh ripped away by teeth. It didn’t add up.
Nick grumbled to himself as he went to get another beer. The whole damn thing was giving him a headache.
The phone ringing was a welcome distraction though it still made Nick frown. Crash had his phone number and it made him hesitant to answer. In a few short hours, Crash had become the bogeyman hiding under his bed, the shadow that didn’t quite gel with all the others. The one that would break free and bear down on Nick when he least expected it. Except he did expect it; he was growing increasingly concerned about Crash showing up on his doorstep or calling him or hiding in the bed of his truck one night.
Nick had never been a coward, not even when he had chosen to lie down with some of the most vicious dogs out there. He’d gotten up with fleas, as was to be expected, but he hadn’t shied away from it. In that line of work, cowardice could—and would—get you killed. In Nick’s newly remade life, cowardice wouldn’t get him very far either because cowardice led to being afraid of even going outside and he would be damned.
“What?” he said as he clicked the phone on.
“Ah… Hi. Is this a bad time?”
It was Wes and Nick let out a relieved breath as he leaned against the counter by the phone. “No, it’s fine,” Nick said. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” Wes said. “You just sounded so… perturbed.”
“Nah,” Nick said. “I don’t have anything to be perturbed about.”
“That’s good,” Wes said. “Being unperturbed is a good way to live. I love that word.”
Nick huffed out a soft laugh. “What can I do for you, Wes?”
“Nothing,” Wes said. “I mean… no. Nothing. I called to share some good news.”
“And what’s that?”
“You don’t have to take me to the physical therapy tomorrow,” Wes said. “Do you want to know why?”
“You decided you don’t need it any longer?” Nick guessed.
“Alas, no,” Wes said. “I think I’m stuck with that part for a while to come. Guess again.”
“Wes, come on,” Nick said. He usually didn’t mind playing along with Wes; he was fun and he amused Nick. Not for the first time, he was made appallingly aware of the fact he liked Wes and that was so weird. Holding his hand that day in the garden had not been bad though. Not bad at all.
“Fine, spoilsport,” Wes said. He sounded so fussy that it made Nick smile and that, too, was a relief.
“Well, spit it out,” Nick said.
“Okay, okay,” Wes said. “You don’t have to take me to physical therapy tomorrow because… I got a car! Well, technically, it’s a truck. That just seemed sturdier and I definitely want sturdy after… after all that. Never mind. Anyway, I went out today with Dawn Marie before she had to leave for work and we looked around. I found the perfect one at our last stop and I got it. I feel so… so… excited, but kind of guilty, too. I mean—”
“Don’t drive anywhere around here by yourself,” Nick said.
As Wes had talked, Nick had started thinking about what Crash had said. He had said Nick spent a lot of time with Wes, which in Crash-speak was too much time. Crash had obviously been pissed off about it and he was unstable as hell. Unstable enough to kill people, Nick was almost certain of that. Even if he was wrong, he still didn’t trust Crash to leave Wes alone. Living on Tobias’s property meant he was safe and snug, but being up and about, driving himself all over Sparrow Falls left him a wide-open target.
“Wait. What? Why?” Wes asked. “This is good news, Nick. I can drive fine, too; my pinky is all gross and strange still, but it doesn’t interfere with my driving. I drove the truck back from the lot. I’m sitting on the porch looking at it right now. It’s red.”
Like waving a flag in front of a bull’s face.
“Just don’t,” Nick said. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s nice of you to be concerned,” Wes said. He cleared his throat. “Really nice. It’s… It’s sweet and thank you very much, but heck, Nick, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s just to physical therapy and the doctor and maybe the library for research sometimes. Besides, I can’t expect everyone to keep carting me around like an invalid. It’s ridiculous.”
“Goddamnit, Wes! Fucking listen to me!” Nick snapped at him; he didn’t mean to, but this was important.
Wes had survived whatever bullshit it was Crash got
up to once, but Nick didn’t think he would again. Crash had his number now and that was bad. That was really bad. It left a sinking, cold, wet feeling pit in the middle of Nick’s belly.
“I don’t understand,” Wes said and he did indeed sound confused. “I’ll be just fine, don’t worry. I can do this.”
“No. Don’t you fucking dare. It’s not safe for you to be out doing that.”
“Nick… Nick… things have calmed down around here, you know that,” Wes said. “Jeeze Louise. It’s really nice of you and of course I don’t think the craziness has stopped or anything, but I won’t be out after dark and I definitely won’t go traipsing around abandoned properties alone anymore.”
Nick gritted his teeth against a sound of frustration and rubbed between his eyebrows. His head was really starting to pound. “Do you really think that because you survived that psycho once that you’d be able to do it again? Huh? Do you? Because I don’t,” he said. “You got lucky, damn lucky, but he also saw your face and you can bet he’s not fucking happy about you still having a pulse. The motherfucker meant to kill you and there’s nothing to stop him from trying again. Do you understand me?”
“God… You don’t think it would… I mean… In broad daylight? Really?” Wes said. “Crap. I did see it and it definitely saw me and oh shit, that makes me a… a… witness. That is so bad.”
“Yes.” Nick growled it at him then took a long swallow of his beer. “So, don’t go anywhere by yourself. Call Dawn Marie or call me. I don’t care how late or how early or how whatever it is, if you need to go somewhere then I’ll come over there and we can ride together. You can drive if you want to, I don’t care, but please don’t go anywhere alone.”
“Goodness gracious,” Wes muttered. Then clearer, “I didn’t even think of that. How could I not think of that? But why would it risk trying to grab me in the daytime? I mean, people would definitely notice a werewolf attacking me on Main Street.”
Nick opened his mouth to correct Wes about the werewolf thing, but didn’t do it. It was pointless; Wes was convinced of what he had seen. It was possible that Crash (or whoever—Nick had to remind himself to keep up the benefit of the doubt thing) wore a mask or even some kind of suit. Nick had never heard of a serial killer doing such a thing, but he also didn’t know much about serial killers. There was that old urban legend though about the clown statue. Maybe it was something along those lines, minus the clown costume, obviously.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 30