Skewed

by Anne McAneny

  He watched now, all alone, and felt a mild stirring in his pants. But no worry. He’d learned to suppress those urges long ago for fear of a snapping belt. It settled back down, deep inside him, where it would channel itself in other ways.

  Time to move. But he stopped when he heard something. Was he not the only one observing the goings-on in the diner tonight? Through his slightly lowered windows—he always cracked them so he could hear people sneaking up on him—he heard a metallic squeal, followed by a rustling in the nearby woods, accompanied by a string of discontented grunts.

  Rusty pulled out the binoculars he kept in the glove compartment. His lenses found the gaunt form of that repulsive maggot, Mickey the diner manager, a bike on the ground near his feet. He was leaning against a tree, holding a small telescopic device, which he aimed at Bridget like a depraved pirate. For God’s sake, did this woman attract any normal men? At least Rusty had a valid reason for his spying.

  Mickey moved one hand up and down the long lens as he watched Bridget bending over and pushing in the chairs.

  Rusty turned away in disgust, knowing what would come next. But when Bridget reached behind the counter and grabbed her purse to leave, Rusty heard a distinct “Dang it!” as Mickey yanked his dilapidated bike from the ground and pedaled into the darkness, the rhythmic squeak of his brakes fading into the distance.

  Rusty savored his final seconds alone with Bridget, he unknown, she unknowing. She’d been so nice, giving him that free pie, but then again, she’d been klutzy about his pen. As she reached to turn off the lights, she suddenly changed her mind and a mischievous grin lit up her face. She leaned back against the counter, set her purse on a stool, and reached into her apron pocket, pulling out something small, square, and white.

  “What do we have here?” Rusty said quietly, his voice tinny and thin, even to him. It was the reason he’d acquired a reputation as a man of few words. Words got people into trouble, at least the spoken ones, while the written form contained beauty, proving so much more effective.

  He refocused the binoculars on the object in Bridget’s hands and his whole body stiffened. “Oh, no, no, no.” His voice filled the car with a trembling dread. “No!” He cast the binoculars to the side and frantically patted his pockets. He came up with only his pen and some blank scraps of paper.

  “Damn her.”

  In a rare impulsive move, Rusty’s left hand shot out to open the car door, his knee and hip already turned to make the hasty exit, but he stopped himself. The moment he opened the door, he’d be revealed, and by the time he reached the locked diner door and figured a way in, the waitress could be on the phone to the police, or worse, to Grady.

  He let his head fall against the driver’s side window, hoping its coolness would calm the frantic scenarios rushing through his mind. They all contained nuances of darkness, tainted as they were by the actions of this waitress waif, a player so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that her absence would scarcely register on the scale of humanity. In fact, he’d be doing her a favor if he went in and put a bullet through her skull right now.

  CHAPTER 33

  Wexler’s text, in keeping with our medieval theme, read: Your chariot awaits. I peeked through my blinds and spotted his double-parked Lexus below.

  The Shell-acked Martini had taken its toll and my eyelids felt leaden. While wandering the apartment at two a.m., I’d consumed a huge bowl of cereal and spent two hours soaking up everything the Internet had to offer on Abner Abel, Mickey Busker, and Betty’s brother, Leroy. Not much. I’d filled the rest of the time covering the innumerable conspiracy theories surrounding the Haiku Killer. Apparently a lot of people spent their nights online, feeding the monster of paranoia. With two pages of self-assigned tasks jotted down, I’d finally drifted off on the couch.

  I texted Wexler to see if he wanted a to-go cup of coffee, but he replied that he’d already java’d up for both of us. That put a smile on my face. I opened a can of cat food and shoved it onto the fire escape for Percival, managing to drop my keys twice. I really didn’t do well without sleep.

  Three minutes later, I was sipping hot, strong coffee, knowing it wouldn’t keep me awake. “Did you get my message about stopping at the Aberdeen?” I said, having texted the request at three a.m.

  “Sure did. I thought it was a little forward of you to suggest a hotel, considering we’ve only had one Shell-acked Martini together, and not so much together as consecutively.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said, reaching into the bag for the orange scone he’d brought me. “I need to pick up my brother’s book from the infamous Hump Banfield. I swear, I don’t know whether to listen to my gut or my brain with that guy.”

  “Gut. Always,” Wexler said with unexpected intensity. “Brains are secondary, the product of a long evolution. Gut instincts are what allowed our ancestors to survive so we could evolve at all.”

  “I read once that the gut has half a billion neurons. It’s like a second brain.”

  “It’s the one I trust most. Given some of the weirdos I’m sure you’ve dealt with in life, you should, too.”

  “There was this one group, when Jack and I were twenty. Called themselves the Psycho-Ticks—a play on the word psychotic.”

  “Sounds like a sixties rock band.”

  “More like a warped cross-section of degenerates and geniuses who claimed they wanted to understand serial killers, but actually emulated them.”

  “Sociopaths can be quite the charmers.”

  “I’ve always thought of them as actors who are on all the time. Scripted, phony, perfect. It must be exhausting. But if it’s all acting, maybe it becomes their norm.”

  “Except for the part where they torture and kill. That’s their personal intermission, when the curtain gets lowered on someone else but they finally get to be themselves.”

  “Gotta wonder what makes them . . . wait for it . . . tick.”

  “It’s that damn first brain. The wiring’s all screwed up.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “But there are upsides, right? No guilt to clog a performance, no attachments to botch up judgment, no inferiority complexes, no worrying what others think.”

  “I’d rather live with attachments and love and a conscience, and all the mess that comes with it.” He glanced at me when mentioning the mess part, and I found it oddly flattering.

  “Not them,” I said. “They learn the lines, smile on cue, throw in a little humility, and voila, score an Oscar.”

  “Or at least a fan club of lonely hearts and ne’er-do-wells.”

  “What a turbo-charged ego boost, though, right? They’re the only ones who know they’re pulling it off, and inside they laugh at the audience for being such suckers.”

  Wexler pulled into the Aberdeen’s long entryway and headed toward the cottages. “So these Psycho-Ticks were into the Haiku Killer?”

  “I guess. The Baltimore police made us aware of it. Along with pictures of the real victims and my mother and Grady, they had school pictures of Jack and me. Kindergarten through senior year, laid out all nice and neat on their website, in computer-generated frames.”

  “Even my parents don’t have that,” Wexler said.

  “I should probably look up the site. My grandfather never bought our yearbooks.”

  “Check the Internet. There are tons of pictures of you growing up.”

  I stared at him, grinning, until he realized he’d just revealed his own snooping; then I tossed him a lifeline. “I prefer pictures where my hand’s not blocking the lens and Jack doesn’t have that Ta-Da! Aren’t I grand? expression.”

  The Aberdeen came into full view. It hadn’t changed much over the years. It was one of those old standbys that survived more on its past reputation than current service or quality. In its heyday, it had stood as a testament to the Old South. Thick, white porch pillars, wide slabs of painted oak leading to
the grand entrance, a front door that could accommodate a truck, and bellmen dressed to the nines. Its thick and luscious red carpet had announced to guests that they’d truly arrived. It had even sported a reputation as a retreat for DC bigwigs seeking rejuvenation. And if the juven part of rejuvenation came in the form of barely legal company with slender legs and welcoming hips, well, no one need be the wiser. Bellhops made a killing keeping their lips zipped about the unzipped; a quick twenty ensured they went on their way until summoned to return with postcoital martinis on a silver tray.

  The stand-alone cottages where Hump was staying had been built years later for extended-stay guests. Several novelists had penned works in them and, to my recollection, only one dead prostitute had ever besmirched the Aberdeen’s reputation. That unfortunate episode had been swept under the carpet by rumors that the victim was a runaway who’d wandered onto the property uninvited. When the truth came out fifteen years later, the judge who’d strangled the poor girl was six feet under, and hotel management had disavowed all knowledge of the incident. Smooth place, the Aberdeen.

  Just as Wexler pulled up to cottage five, two deer soared in front of his car. He slammed on his brakes and my remaining coffee splashed onto my shirt. Guess I should have left the lid on, but scones shouted out for dunking.

  “I am so sorry,” he said before pulling out a clean rag from his console. Then he reached into his backseat and conjured a white shirt, still in its bag from the store.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Doesn’t everyone keep a spare? Tell you what, let me get the book from this guy while you clean yourself up—if you don’t mind changing in the car. The windows are tinted.”

  I looked around. Not another person in sight. “That’s fine, but I should really get the book.”

  “I’d like to do it. I want to see what my gut says about this guy. Besides, it would hardly be chivalrous of me to allow a lady to enter a cottage alone with a man who gives her the heebie-jeebies.” With that, he winked and was down the path to Hump’s front door in a few short strides.

  Hump wouldn’t like it, given his warped interest in me, but I was curious to get Wexler’s impression. I let the situation play out. When the cottage door opened, Wexler’s broad shoulders blocked my view of Hump. He disappeared inside and the door closed behind him. Three minutes passed. Then five. Then seven. I was about to join them in my oversized, high-thread-count shirt when Wexler emerged, book in hand. I lowered my window to wave at Hump, but the door slammed shut, as if a scorned lover were sending a defiant message.

  Wexler got in and assessed my new look with a flick of his brows—either approving of either his wardrobe or its wearer.

  “That took a while,” I said.

  “I don’t know what was going on,” he said. “But definitely heebie-jeebie-worthy. He claimed he couldn’t remember where the book was, then disappeared into the bedroom to look. I took the opportunity to snoop.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I’m a detective. I detect.” He said it without a grin, making me wonder if he ever used that line seriously when serving search warrants and shoving protesters aside.

  “And what did you detect?”

  “The guy has allergies, doesn’t like scented deodorant, wears name-brand socks, and had your brother’s book under a couch cushion.”

  “What?”

  “Must have hidden it so he could hold on to it longer or something. I don’t even want to think about what he was doing in the bedroom.”

  “What did he do when you found the book?”

  “Don’t know. I shouted to him that I found it, and before he could get his chair turned around, I thanked him, told him I had an urgent call to make, and took off. He was scooting after me as I left.”

  “Very odd.”

  “Certainly ambiguous.”

  “Ha!” I proclaimed. “That’s the complete opposite of what a gut would say. Guts, by their very nature, reek of disambiguity. They go one way or the other, and usually negative.”

  “Exactly,” Wexler said. “So since my gut instinct didn’t tell me to cut and run—”

  “Although you kind of outran a man in a wheelchair, with pride.”

  He smiled. “Well, I didn’t want you sitting out here detecting anything in my glove compartment.”

  “Now you know I’m going in,” I said, reaching for the glove compartment. It was locked and when I glanced at him, he was smiling. I’d walked right into it.

  “Anyway,” Wexler said, “maybe Hump was bummed because he was hoping to see your pretty face.”

  “Compliment accepted, thank you.”

  “Compliment intended, you’re welcome. I mean, you do meet most of the qualifications to be considered universally attractive.”

  “Most?”

  “You’re lacking facial adiposity.”

  “Fat?”

  “A little fat in the face is considered attractive, healthy, good for breeding.”

  “Anyone ever called you a romantic, Wexler?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Shocking.”

  He merged smoothly onto the highway. My thoughts grew tangled as yet another layer was added to my strange perceptions of Hump Banfield. After a few minutes, I opened my brother’s book and examined the photos again, completely unaware that when Grandpa Barton’s face melded into Grady’s face, which morphed into a third man’s shadowy image, it was my first dream inside a Lexus.

  I woke up an hour later when the book crashed to my feet. “Please tell me I wasn’t drooling.”

  “In the interest of finding you attractive in the future, I didn’t look. But you do snore like Anne Bonny after a bottle of rum.”

  I smacked his arm, impressed by its firmness, and then reached down for the book. It had fallen open to the page where my brother had taped the extra photo and written his note.

  A panicked tension flared behind my eyes. “Oh, no.”

  “Something wrong, Rip?”

  I held up the book so he could see. “My brother wrote an inscription on this page.”

  Wexler looked and saw a blank page. “I don’t see anything.”

  “This isn’t my book.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Percival screeched at the intruder, showing his claws and rearing back with his hair in full bring-it mode.

  “Get outta here, fleabag!” said the short intruder, swatting at the cat until it leapt to a neighboring fire escape and disappeared. Then he turned to whisper to a guy down in the alley.

  “She ain’t home,” he said as he lifted the unlocked window. “Meet me at the door.”

  The brawny man in the alley ambled to the front of the building, resembling a mobile letter A as he tried to keep his gargantuan thighs from rubbing against each other. He took the elevator up and waited by the door of Janie’s apartment. When a neighbor passed by carrying a bag of trash, he nodded politely and knocked on the door. “Hey Janie, you in there? It’s me.”

  The door opened and the man in the hallway slipped into the apartment before the neighbor could see that the person answering the door was a far cry from the pretty blonde who lived there.

  “So this seems like a weird search,” said the cat swatter. “A fuckin’ tennis ball?”

  “Rocko has a picture of her holdin’ it, and he’s got a gut feeling it’s where Dizzy hid the combination for the safe.”

  “Rocko and his fuckin’ gut. Ain’t nothin’ good ever come from that guy’s gut.”

  “Yeah, but it never steers him wrong. Now get lookin’ but don’t be an asshole about it. He don’t want her knowing we were here.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Wexler and I listened to the sound of Nicholls’s ringing desk phone as it blared through the car speakers. Six rings and nothing. Glad we weren’t calling in to report a mad shooter on the loose. Fin
ally, a gurgle of static came through the line and we knew Nicholls had pressed his unreliable speakerphone button.

  Detective Schwank’s voice shouted in the background. “You gonna answer that phone, Nicholls, or you like the song it’s playing?”

  Sounded like Schwank had four inches of an eight-inch cruller in his mouth.

  After a hesitation during which Nicholls must have flipped off Schwank, a voice came through the speaker. “Chase Nicholls, Kingsley Police Department.”

  “Nicholls, it’s me,” said Wexler. “I need a favor.”

  “Ain’t it your day off?”

  “Can you get over to the Aberdeen Hotel and check something out for me?”

  “Aw, Christ. You leave a dead hooker over there?”

  “Not today. Need you to check on one of the guests. Hump Banfield, cottage five. Rile him up, then follow him to see where he goes. I need to know who picks him up, what he does, that sort of thing. He rode the hotel shuttle the other day so he might leave that way. It’s possible he’s a reporter.”

  “Sure thing,” Nicholls said. “Slow around here anyway. Ah, shit! Frickin’ Schwank throwin’ donut sprinkles at me.”

  I didn’t want the whole department thinking I was crazy, so I’d asked Wexler to keep our trip to West Virginia on the down-low, but Wexler filled Nicholls in as best he could.

  Nicholls laughed when Wexler finished explaining. “I knew you were more interested in that haiku story than you let on, Wexler. You got the hots for little Janie, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on. You act all weird around her, like, weirder than your usual self.” Nicholls’s donut chomping filled the hollows of the car. “Lemme tell you something. If I didn’t think of her as a little sister, I’d be all over that. Doesn’t get any better than—”

  The speaker cut off abruptly.

  I turned to Wexler. “You cut him off.”

  “What? No. Bad connection. And trust me, no earth-shattering comments were imminent.”