by Anne McAneny
“Not just mine, Janie.” He looked genuinely concerned. “He mailed them to you.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
He smiled, a mixture of sympathy and pride on his face. “I have good instincts about people.” His eyes, not so unlike my brother’s, constricted to razors and cut to the chase. “You’re going after the Haiku Killer.”
CHAPTER 17
At least my dress still looked good. Come on, I urged myself, just do it. It had to be fate that their house was within newspaper-tossing distance of the road that led home from the prison. The worst they could do was boot me out and tell me to get lost.
I climbed the creaking steps of the porch and surprised myself by wishing Wexler were here. The thought of his composed self-control gave me strength, so I raised my hand and knocked on the door.
A guy answered. A hot guy. A really hot guy. That hadn’t shown up on my smartphone when I verified the owner of the home as Melinda Biedermann, widow of Professor Jason Biedermann, the Haiku Killer’s first victim.
The hot guy’s shirtless torso stared back at me with bumps and valleys made of pure muscle, and it took me a good five seconds to rip my eyes away and find his. He had to be Professor Biedermann’s son. The professor had been half-Spanish and it looked like Junior here had inherited all the good parts, including wavy, dark hair that he wore long, like a hipster skater, despite an age north of thirty.
“Hi, there,” I said. “My name is Ja—”
“Yeah, uh, my mom’s at a retreat and she usually gets her makeup from those pink car ladies.”
“Oh, no, I’m not—”
“You wanna come in?” he said. “I was kinda in the middle of something and I don’t want it to burn.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m Janie Perkins, by the way.”
He reached his hand down and shook mine. “Nice to meet you, Janie. I’m Jason Biedermann. The third. But we don’t acknowledge the second very much.” It was then I caught a whiff of something earthy and mellow, and noticed pink lines running through the whites of my host’s glazed eyes. Of course. Jason Biedermann the third was stoned out of his mind.
He gestured for me to come in and led me to the kitchen.
Despite being alone with a strong, high stranger, I sensed no threat. After all, I was the one barging in on him.
“You’re not a narc, are you?” Jason asked.
“No. In fact, I’ve partaken a few times myself.”
He nodded approvingly, slipped on a muscle tee—which seemed redundant—and muttered, “Cool.”
He turned off a few pots cooking on the stove, but I didn’t ask. I was more curious about past crimes, not potential new ones.
While he tended his project, I sat down at the modest kitchen table and jumped in. “Jason, my mother may have been an indirect victim of the Haiku Killer.”
“Shit. Like, recently?”
“No,” I said. “She died years ago, not long after your father.”
“Oh, gotcha. I mean, why do you think my mother’s at a retreat, right? Not only a widow, but man, when the stuff came out about my dad, it freaked her out. She’s never been the same. I mean, what was he doin’ with all those chicks, right? They were like teenagers.”
“A few might have been in their twenties,” I said lamely.
Jason’s dad, philosophy professor Jason Biedermann of Eastern Virginia College of Liberal Arts, had been the Haiku Killer’s first victim. The haiku found at the scene had read:
Death greatest of all
Busy yet barren am I
Blest be as I deem
Several experts had convened when the case was fresh. The consensus was that since the victim made his living as a philosophy professor, the words held a direct tie to Socrates, the subject of Biedermann’s thesis years earlier. They posited that the first line referred to the Socrates quote Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
Since blessings were normally bestowed by God, the experts agreed that the killer—sans nickname at that point—viewed himself as God, and death as a blessing. While the killer was comfortable taking life, he nonetheless framed it as a good deed, because a professor who worshipped Socrates would surely agree that death was a blessing. Perhaps the killer thought he was doing the professor a favor?
The second line—Busy yet barren am I—was one of the reasons Mrs. Biedermann needed a retreat. The professor had often been too busy to see students during regular office hours because, as it turned out, he was busy seeing particular students who boasted Ds, not As—in bra sizes, not grades.
Sadly, in death, the professor was outed as a prolific philanderer. The investigators uncovered disturbing photos of the professor with more than forty female students. He took the pictures himself, the camera found within reach of his office chair—the one where he hosted the majority of his students. Apparently, his personal philosophy included no objections to oral sex. Out of courtesy to the girls, or due to their facedown positions, he kept their recognizable features out of frame; it was only from the girls’ varying hair colors and styles that the police ascertained a number north of forty.
Jason sat down across from me and lit a joint, offering me first dibs, but I refused. “Before my brother killed himself”—Jason drew long and hard on his blunt—“he would refer to our dad as Professor Fellatio. He used to wonder why Professor F. couldn’t at least take the girls to his couch. Laziest fuckin’ philanderer ever.”
I was no philosophy student, but I could think of one Socrates quote that would fit Professor Biedermann to a tee. Unfortunately, it would also insult the long-suffering Mrs. Biedermann: By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. Or a dirtbag.
After the photo discovery, the investigation into Professor Fellatio’s murder focused on his sexual liaisons, because the authorities had no idea that his death marked the beginning of a serial killer’s legacy. The unsolved case was tucked away until seven months later, when the second murder occurred. And that’s when the local case of the promiscuous professor became national news, apparently sending Jason’s brother to an early grave and mommy to therapy.
“The worst part,” Jason said, “was my dad’s gawping, over-the-moon expression in some of those photos. He looked like a monkey in a science lab who’d been taught to press a button to get an orgasm, like, both enthralled by the button and unable to believe it existed.” He took another hit and laughed. “Guess he was ahead of his time with the selfie, though, huh?”
I nodded. Busy yet barren. Of morals.
After allowing Jason this questionable trip down memory lane, I came to the purpose of my visit. “I’m here because someone sent me photos of my mom.”
“Oh, shit. Don’t tell me my dad did your mom back in the day.”
I almost laughed. “No, nothing like that.” I explained my receipt of the photos and my mother’s link to the Haiku Killer. “What I need to know is if you or your mom received any photos in the mail recently. If these were mailed to me by the Haiku Killer, he might have mailed photos to all his victims’ families.”
Jason looked horrified. “No, man, no. We haven’t received anything like that. Can you imagine?”
Obviously, I could, but I let it go. “You live here with your mom?”
“Not officially, but I’ve been here for like a year, so I guess I do for now.”
“And you’d definitely know if a photo came in the mail? Maybe from Ridge, West Virginia?”
“Absolutely. I always get the mail. And I’d totally show you the photos if I had ’em. You’re smokin’ hot, you know what I’m sayin’?”
I wanted to be flattered, but I knew Jason would have said the same if a female orangutan was sitting across from him. I smiled anyway.
“Help you with anything else?” he said.
“Ju
st, um, I guess you and your family never sat around the kitchen table and came up with connections to the other victims, did you?”
“Naw,” he said, drawing out the syllable in a sad way that implied he didn’t want to disappoint me. “As far as I know, my dad didn’t know that priest or that doctor. He didn’t go to church or have a heart problem or anything. Of course, I barely knew him, but I’m told when he wasn’t teaching, he was either cooking or researching recipes.”
Or getting his jollies from the mouths of babes.
“He used to host a lot of dinner parties here,” Jason continued. “And he liked to read and collect Roman shit. Weren’t those other murders in like totally different parts of the state?”
I nodded.
“My dad was a homebody. Didn’t get around much—at least geographically.”
Surprisingly, Jason made a good point. It wasn’t the victims who got around, but rather, the killer. And with no signs of forced entry or struggle in any of the cases, the Haiku Killer could have been somebody the victims knew and trusted, someone who established himself in their lives, appearing with such regularity that they didn’t even consider it unusual when he came to kill them.
The question was, who could do that and also walk into my old living room in Caulfield?
CHAPTER 18
Bridget Perkins, 30 Years, 2 Hours Ago
The turkey Reuben guy at table two was proving just enough of a challenge to satisfy Bridget’s urges. He’d been shielding something with his hand for the last ten minutes, puzzling over it, communicating with it. If Bridget didn’t know better, she’d think he was sneaking bits of his sandwich to a pet mouse. But then she spotted his pen. An elegant pen that clashed with the man’s blue-collar appearance. It was gold, shapely, substantial. For all Bridget knew, it might be a knockoff, but something about the way it acted as a counterweight to his pudgy hands told her it was the real thing. Had he purchased it himself? Or had he held on to it since high school graduation years ago with hopes for a future that would merit such a pen? Bridget suddenly had to know what that pen was writing.
“Hey there,” said Lucinda, pulling Bridget from her thoughts. “Just what has gotten into you lately? You seem distracted and happy at the same time, and there’s only one thing I know can do that to a lady, and that’s a good man.”
“What’s that, Lucinda? You have a new man in your life?”
“No, but I’m sensing you do.” Lucinda winked, but it was a graceless gesture on her.
“Oh, Lucy, you’re so funny,” Bridget said, a line that had worked once before to brush off Lucinda’s mild obsession with Bridget’s personal life. Although she thought of Lucinda as a big sister, and would do anything for her, she had to keep her at bay now and again.
“I’m just sayin’, you have a glow—”
“Tell you what, we’ll talk about it over the breakfast shift. Plus, I have some ideas about helpin’ you boost your self-esteem so you’ll finally believe you deserve a quality man. You do, you know.”
Lucinda touched Bridget’s arm, her eyes welling. “Thanks, Bridget. I think I’m finally ready to listen.”
“I know you are.” She stroked her friend’s arm. “Oh, table two is ready for dessert. Be right back.”
When Bridget got three steps from the table, she saw the customer shove his shielded item back into his blazer pocket. The blazer was worn, with thin elbows and threads fraying at the wrist, but most important, the pockets no longer held fast to the jacket. They gaped open, sloppy and wanting, like baby robins awaiting a worm. Perfect. After all, she wasn’t a professional like those overseas kids that got training the moment their pincer muscles scooped up a grain of rice. Bridget was just a good old-fashioned kleptomaniac, and if that meant the occasional pickpocket job, then she was up for it. Her preferred method was a distraction-swipe, a simple placement of one hand on the table while leaning toward the menu, allowing the other hand to sidle away with the objet du désir. Sometimes she’d just knock something to the ground and strike at the moment of clatter. Despite promising herself she’d stop—heck, they were her fingers at the end of her hands—she didn’t want to, not yet, not with the fabulous crescendo inside of her and the intoxicating provocation of this customer’s mad scribblings.
Bridget looked the small man right in the eyes, at least for as long as he would raise his, and smiled. “We’ve got a fabulous custard cream pie tonight,” she lied, knowing it tasted like watered-down milk, “and a chocolate mousse that’s out of this world.” She shifted a plate and saucer on the table as if preparing them for bussing. “Or at least they’re pretty darn good, if you’re interested in some dessert.”
With an imperceptible flick of her pinkie, she knocked his pen to the floor, knowing he’d cross hell or high water to keep ahold of that thing. His eyes nearly poked out of his head as he watched the precious implement cascade toward the grimy tiles below.
“Oopsie daisy,” Bridget said, crouching down as if to retrieve the pen, knowing the customer would waste no time leaning over to reclaim his prized possession. With the two of them in that awkward position, Bridget took pleasure in the fact that the eyes of several customers were on the tiny commotion and yet she’d still be able to pull off her heist without fear. Even if anxiety did rear its intrusive head, she’d channel it to enhance the experience and make the high that much sweeter. This triumph would last her a good long while.
The customer’s pocket opened wide and said ahhh—or maybe AHHH—as it sensed a pending violation. Her slim fingers did their dirty work before the poor man could even reach his precious pen. As he finally grabbed it from under the table, Bridget slipped the procured item into the side pocket of her apron, the one where she kept personal items properly separated from everything else. Meanwhile, the poor customer never did get to ponder the dessert decision the way he wanted to, because at that moment a grand Mercedes pulled up to the front of the diner and drew everyone’s attention.
Flashes of the lighted Field Diner sign glinted red off the Mercedes’s shiny black paint. The F in Field had been threatening to burn out all week and its flickering indecision now played off the vehicle’s roof, giving the impression of an upscale police car on a mission.
Bridget sucked in a panicked breath, forgetting all about her swipe. Her heart pounded as she hoped Mr. Abel wouldn’t notice that the car outside the diner was the same Mercedes he’d passed on the road earlier.
When Sam Kowalczyk got out of the driver’s seat to open the door for the passenger in back, the interior lights illuminated none other than Grady McLemore. While Bridget was thrilled to see Grady again, her primary concern was the driver.
She glanced at Abner Abel, who had halted midbite, a chunk of grapefruit en route to his mouth. He curved his long face into a distorted mask of concentration, and when he finally placed the wolfish face of Sam Kowalczyk, a window shade of realization lowered itself over his countenance. He swiveled his scraggy neck and Bridget suddenly felt like he was peering into the depths of her deceptive soul.
The item in her apron pocket, evidence of her most recent sin, burned against her skin.
CHAPTER 19
When I arrived home, somewhat woozy from Jason Biedermann’s secondhand smoke, I spotted a package outside my door. No biggie—I was not above ordering batteries or pancake mix via laptop—but this particular parcel threw me for a loop. My brother’s publisher must have printed up huge, full-color address labels for him; they matched the cover of his book. I glanced around the empty hallway, my stomach turning at the thought of passing neighbors having read the book’s title: My Life as a Harried Haiku Twin, by John B. Perkins.
The cover photo, in keeping with Jack’s ego, showed his fat, well-nourished hand peeking out from the yellow blanket in which Grandpa Barton had wrapped us when we departed the hospital at ten days old. Baby Jack practically waved to the crowd, and the reporters had eaten u
p every wiggle of his fingers. I was surprised Adult Jack hadn’t Photoshopped a tattoo on the chubby palm: Vote for me!
I grabbed the box, shoved it under my arm, and rushed inside. A scraping sound from the fire escape made me jump, but then some brain cells kicked in. “Hey, Percival. Give me a heart attack, why don’t ya?”
I tossed Jack’s book on the couch, let in my green-eyed feline friend, and opened a can of cat food. As I heated water for tea, a reminder dinged on my phone: Meet Hump Banfield 5:30—Bring scanner.
Damn, I’d completely forgotten about my wheelchair buddy. I checked the time. If I left in half an hour, I’d make it. In the meantime, I grabbed my tea and hardened my psyche to read the book exploiting my mother’s murder. Pulling my legs beneath me on the sofa, I tried to discern Jack’s marketing angle. Did he envision people leaving this five-pound monstrosity out as a casual conversation starter? Have a seat! Cheese and grapes on the way—and feel free to lose yourself in the illustrated story of a pregnant woman shot in the head by her secret lover. Bon appétit!
I cracked open the stiff, glossy pages, so laden with full-color photos that a heavy ink smell wafted up, blocking out the usual new-book scent. Jack had taped an extra picture on the inside front cover, just for me. It showed us wrestling on the floor in front of the Christmas tree, torn wrapping paper covering our feet. He’d written a note on the page opposite: Love ya, Sis, even if you do wrestle like a girl. I was pretty sure we were fighting over whose Cabbage Patch Kid was uglier. He’d won.
I flipped through the pages, lingering on some, rushing past others. Either short on story or desperate for visual impact, Jack had included large photos on most left-hand pages, with close-ups of selected areas on the right, as if he were a cartographer detailing the busier parts of a slaying while highlighting the smaller roads that led to votes. Apparently, voters needed to know such trivialities as the titles of the books on the shelf behind my mother’s unconscious body. They needed to see the neatly arranged photos on the marble table in the back of the room and the grate of the barren fireplace as it awaited winter’s wrath. Little Bro had clearly gotten his harried hands on the police file, given the clinical nature of some of the photos.