Truth and Consequences

by V. J. Chambers

  Carlos held up both his hands. “Hey, calm down. I, uh, just saw you leave the bar, and I thought I’d come after you to talk is all.”

  Oh. Amos’s breath started to come in harsh gasps of relief. This wasn’t an ambush in the dark. He was safe. He wasn’t about to be killed. Still, Amos was thinking that he would feel much better if he started carrying pepper spray or something.

  “You all right?” said Carlos.

  “Don’t ever sneak up on me,” snapped Amos.

  “Right,” said Carlos. “I forgot you were, uh, attacked by that serial killer.”

  “You forgot?” Amos glared at him. “In your article, you made it out like it was my fault.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Carlos. “I didn’t mean that. That was a crappy thing to write.”

  “It was a crappy thing. You’re a crappy person.”

  Carlos shoved his hands in his pockets, hanging his head. “I really am sorry. There’s got to be something I can do to make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Amos.

  And, at that moment, the bus pulled up.

  “Just stay away from me,” said Amos, and he climbed up into the bus and away from Carlos.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “So, wait,” said Rufus, rolling onto his side in bed. It was nearly midnight, and he and Frankie were going to bed for the night. He was already under the covers, but she was changing into her nightgown. “You think he’s innocent now?”

  Frankie popped her head through the collar of the nightgown. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “But I have to admit the case is getting interesting. Something’s going on here, and I want to uncover what it is.”

  “So, you’re on board with what Lawrence is doing, then?”

  “I think so.” Frankie crawled into bed. “This thing with the serial killer is throwing us all for a loop, though.”

  “You think it could be him?”

  She snuggled close to Rufus. “It could be. It makes a certain kind of awful sense, doesn’t it? And even though Curtis made those nasty drawings, he had no history of violence. This serial killer guy, though, he’s proven he’s willing to kill. So, it does seem more likely to be him than to be Curtis.”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “I have to admit, I didn’t see this coming.”

  “See what coming?”

  “You agreeing with Lawrence. I thought you were going to do battle with her to the bitter end.”

  Frankie turned to look at him. “I wasn’t doing battle.”

  “I don’t know, it seemed like you were pretty serious.”

  “She’s been through a lot with her husband. That came out of nowhere. She had no idea he was such a bad guy.”

  “Sounds like you might even like Lawrence.”

  “Pfft.” Frankie glared at the ceiling. “I feel sorry for her. It’s not the same thing.”

  Rufus laughed.

  “Don’t laugh,” said Frankie. “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.’

  “No it’s not. Besides, you’ll wake up Thad and then he’ll climb into bed with us and take up the entire bed and neither of us will get any sleep.”

  “Ooh,” said Rufus, still laughing, “you always go for the worst possible scenario.”

  “Rufus.” She pulled her pillow out from under her head and hit him with it.

  He batted the pillow aside, pulled her close, and kissed her.

  She melted in his arms.

  He pulled back. “Hey,” he said in a rough whisper, “you know I love you, right?”

  “I love you too.” She kissed the tip of his nose.

  They smiled at each other.

  “Now, where’s my pillow?” said Frankie.

  “Mmm? What? You mean the pillow you hit me with? That pillow?”

  “Rufus, give it back.”

  And Rufus was laughing again.

  * * *

  Jimmy worked in the morgue for the Haven Hills Police Department. He was one of the few people that Iain was friendly with in the department. He was very thin, but he was always eating, despite the fact that he looked at and cut up dead bodies all day long.

  Right then, Jimmy had two burgers and a pile of fries sitting on his desk. It was his lunch break. “So, what did you want me to look at?”

  Iain handed over several different photos. They were girls that Mark Thomas Bennett had killed and pictures of Allison Ross’s crime scene.

  “Oh, wow,” said Jimmy. “I remember these. This is that Bennett guy, right?”

  “Right,” said Iain.

  “Except… this one.” Jimmy picked up Allison’s picture. “I don’t know this one.”

  “You saying that Bennett didn’t do that?” said Iain.

  Jimmy shrugged. He picked up his burger and took a big bite. He chewed. Swallowed. “I can’t be sure about that. Maybe could be. It’s a little different, though. Seems, uh, more chaotic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you look at these, it’s more like the killer is enhancing the face? See how he cuts here, like he’s widening the smile, extending the eyes?”

  “Sure,” said Iain. “I can see that. But there are these cuts too.”

  “Superficial,” said Jimmy. “In this one—” He pointed at Allison’s photo. “It’s more like whoever did it just destroyed her face.”

  “So, you don’t think it’s the same person?”

  “I couldn’t be sure,” said Jimmy. “French fry?” He offered one to Iain.

  Iain looked down at the crime scene photo of Allison and shook his head. “No thanks.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “They’re really good.”

  “I’m not real hungry right now,” said Iain. “What if this is an early permutation of the same killer? What if he worked up to this from this?” Iain pointed from Allison’s photo to one of the others. “Is that possible?”

  “Well, anything’s possible,” said Jimmy. “And maybe if that’s the case, he developed some control as he continued to kill? Maybe when he was a younger killer, he was in a frenzy, and then began to rein it in later.”

  “I see,” said Iain.

  “But it could be two completely different killers,” said Jimmy.

  “Right,” said Iain. “Well, thanks for your time.”

  “Sure thing,” said Jimmy. “Sure you don’t want a fry?”

  * * *

  “Hey,” said Whitney James, opening the door to her apartment. “You’re right on time.”

  Iain smiled at her. “I try to be punctual.” This was the second of the girls that had supposedly been involved with Joel Sanders that he was talking to. Unlike Carrie, Whitney seemed happy to meet with him. She didn’t seem worried or nervous at all. He stepped through the door. It opened onto a kitchen with a gray pattern tile and ruffly curtains on the window.

  Whitney went over to her small, round kitchen table and sat down. “Have a seat. This is totally exciting.”

  Iain sat down with her. “It is?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Whitney. “Back in the day, when Allison was originally, you know, um…”

  “You can say murdered.”

  “Right, murdered.” Whitney nodded. “So, back then, no one talked to me. I had one class with her. It was gym. And when we were like, I don’t know, nine or ten, we went to the same Girl Scout day camp, and I forgot my lunch one day, and she shared her sandwich with me. She was really nice. It sucks what happened.”

  Iain nodded. “Yes, it does.” He felt out of sorts, unsure of how to respond to that sentiment. “Anyway, this isn’t strictly about that.”

  “No? What’s it about?”

  “Well, I, uh, I don’t want to spook you,” said Iain. “The last girl I spoke to…” He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is that I understand this might be a difficult thing to talk about—”

  “No, I barely knew Allison.”

  “I don’t mean Allison.”

  “So, what do you m
ean?”

  Iain took a deep breath. “I’ll just come out and say it, I guess.”

  “Okay.” Whitney leaned forward.

  “Mr. Sanders. He was an English teacher.”

  “Oh, yeah, I had him. What about him?”

  “It doesn’t bring up any, um, bad memories?”

  Whitney shook her head. “No.”

  “I understood that you were one of the girls he might have allegedly been, uh, er… that is, there were some rumors—”

  “Oh, right.” Whitney nodded, grinning. “I know what you’re talking about now. But that wasn’t me.”

  “No?”

  “No, it would have been cool to be part of that, but I wasn’t.”

  “Cool?”

  “Maybe that’s the wrong word.” She laughed a little. She got up, suddenly. “Hey, you want something to drink? I’ve got sodas.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m going to have a Coke. Is that cool?”

  “That’s fine.”

  She went over to her refrigerator and got out a can of Coca-Cola. “You sure you don’t want one?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She came back over and sat down.

  “Listen, to get back to what we were talking about?”

  “Oh, right.” She nodded. “So, um, something was going on. I don’t know if he was sleeping with them or not, but it was definitely weird.”

  “Weird in what way?”

  “Okay, well, there were three of them, and they all sat together in my class. Allison wasn’t in that class, by the way. I think she had Sanders, though, but she was in a different class. Anyway, point is, they all sat together and giggled a lot. And they got away with murder.” She winced. “I mean, not murder. I don’t think they killed Allison.” She furrowed her brow. “That wouldn’t make sense, would it?” she said softly.

  “Can we go back to the weird part?” said Iain.

  “Oh, sorry.” She took a sip of her soda. “I think it was Carrie Cruz and Holly Daley and… Tina Weeks? Or maybe Jenny Aaron. I can’t remember. They kind of looked alike.” She furrowed her brow. “But whatever. The three of them were horrible. They would interrupt him in the middle of a lecture. They would disrupt the class. They would sit there and spend the whole class on their phones. They never took any of the tests. They never did any work at all that I could see. They all got As. And he was like… I don’t know, afraid of them? I don’t know how else to put it.”

  “Why would you say afraid?”

  “He would never reprimand them, he would just say, ‘Girls, please.’ And then one of them would give him a look, and he would back down.”

  “That’s very strange,” said Iain.

  “Totally,” said Whitney. “It was weird. Anyway, then there was that big scandal with the school board where they were investigating him. And they called those girls in as witnesses and they said that nothing was going on. But I don’t buy that. I mean, something was going on. I don’t know if it was an affair. That doesn’t really fit, in my opinion. I mean, think about it, if you’re a girl having sex with a teacher, are you going to want to share him with two other girls?”

  “I…” Iain shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”

  “No, you’re going to be jealous as hell,” she said. “You’re going to want him all to yourself. But they were all really good friends, never mad at each other.”

  Iain wasn’t sure if that meant they weren’t involved with the teacher or not. He had never been a teenage girl himself, and—for that matter—he didn’t think the way normal people did. But he thought it was possible that the girls might have thought they were special if there were only three of them. Maybe they’d dealt with the trauma by reveling in the perks that Sanders gave them. And maybe Sanders felt conflicted about it. Maybe the fear that Whitney thought she saw was actually guilt.

  “Anyway,” said Whitney, “if you figure out what was up with that, can you like call me or something and let me know? Truthfully, it’s always kind of bothered me.”

  * * *

  Elke shrugged. “I don’t know, Noel Hughes rubbed me the wrong way.” She was in the conference room, eating a jelly-filled donut that Amos had brought in that morning.

  “But you don’t have any evidence,” said Iain, who was sitting across from her.

  Frankie was rummaging through the remaining donuts. “Did you take the last of the jelly-filled?”

  “Sorry,” said Elke.

  Frankie made a face and selected a chocolate donut with sprinkles. “How did she rub you the wrong way?”

  “Well, she didn’t seem very broken up about Allison, for one thing,” said Elke.

  “But that means nothing,” said Iain.

  “Right,” said Elke, “but she casually said, ‘Wasn’t she raped?’ If my best friend was brutally raped and murdered, I’m not going to just say that word as if it’s nothing.”

  Frankie sat down with her donut. “When did she say that?”

  “After I wanted her alibi,” said Elke. “So, I guess she might have been flustered because she knew she could be a suspect.”

  “Is she a suspect?” said Iain.

  “I don’t know,” said Elke. “She doesn’t have a motive.”

  Iain waved that away. “Who cares about motive? Motive schmotive. Is there anything tying her to the crime?”

  “Not really,” said Elke.

  “Well, there’s always some reason to kill your best friend,” said Frankie, breaking off a piece of her donut.

  Elke raised an eyebrow at her. “There is?”

  “Sure,” said Frankie. “Jealousy, maybe boyfriend issues… maybe she bought the dress that Noel wanted to wear to the prom.”

  Elke snorted. “People don’t kill for that reason.”

  “Maybe they do if they’re unstable,” said Frankie.

  Elke groaned. “We’re reaching, though, aren’t we? Iain’s right. We’ve got nothing on her.”

  “Does she have an alibi?” said Iain.

  “I thought you didn’t care about alibis,” said Elke.

  “No, that’s not true,” said Iain. “I don’t care about alibis that are unprovable, like when someone says their husband was home with them all evening. If there’s an alibi with documentation or one with numerous witnesses, of course I’m not going to discount it.”

  “Well, she says she was at cheerleading practice,” said Elke.

  “No,” said Frankie.

  “What?” said Elke.

  “Allison was a cheerleader too. There was no cheerleading practice that day. That’s the whole reason that Allison got murdered. If she’d been at practice, it wouldn’t have happened,” said Frankie.

  “Oh, that’s true,” said Elke. She brightened. “So, Noel’s definitely lying.”

  “Or confused,” said Iain, “considering it was five years ago.”

  “I think we should keep looking into her,” said Elke. “Hart, do you mind doing some digging?”

  “Not at all,” said Frankie, smiling.

  “Great,” said Elke, popping the last bite of her donut in her mouth.

  “But,” said Frankie, “next time I get dibs on the jelly-filled.”

  “Mmm,” said Elke. “You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Hart.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mark Thomas Bennett was a short, thin man with curly dark hair. When he smiled, he seemed almost apologetic. Iain didn’t think he looked like a monster, but then—in his experience—most monsters didn’t look like monsters. Bennett seemed like a normal man.

  He was waiting for them in an interview room wearing a blue jumpsuit. His hands were shackled together. So were his feet. When Iain and Elke came into the room, he stood up and offered them his hand.

  Iain found it awkward shaking hands with a shackled man, and he didn’t much want to give any respect to a serial killer. But Elke shook his hand, so Iain followed suit.

  Elke sat down opposite Bennett. Iain sat next to her. Bennett sat down last.<
br />
  They all looked at each other, none of them speaking.

  “Well,” said Elke. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” said Bennett.

  “No thanks are necessary,” said Elke. “We’re only here to see if you are actually responsible for the death of Allison Ross, nothing more.”

  “Well, I can answer that easily for you, Elke,” said Bennett. “Can I call you Elke?”

  “Ms. Lawrence will be fine,” said Elke.

  “I killed Allison Ross, Elke,” said Bennett. “I cut her face like I do all my girls.”

  If Elke was annoyed at his use of her first name, she didn’t let it show. “Well, it’s common knowledge that her face was cut. You said you knew things that only the killer would know. How about you tell us those things?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Bennett. “Would you like to know how soft her skin was? I love that soft, young skin. It’s like silk. She was so nubile and fresh and lovely.”

  Iain was starting to feel ill. He didn’t like hearing Bennett say things like that. It lit a fire in him. He wanted to rip the bastard apart. He didn’t get to talk about murdering a girl as if it was a lover’s tryst.

  Elke shrugged. “That’s not a revelation either, Mr. Bennett.”

  Bennett cocked his head at her, sizing her up. “Have you looked at my crime scenes, Elke?”

  “I have,” she said.

  “And what do you think? Do you see the similarities between my other victims and Allison? Do you see how I made her mine, just like I did with my other girls?”

  “What I think isn’t relevant,” said Elke. “I’m here because you need to convince me that you’re the killer.”

  Bennett’s shoulders slumped. “I could do that, I guess. But then you won’t come back and see me ever again, will you?”

  Iain clenched his hands into fists under the table. He hated this guy.

  “I only care about my case,” said Elke. “So, I suppose you’re right. But if you aren’t useful to my case, then I have no reason to talk to you at all.” She turned to Iain. “Come on, Hudson, let’s—”

  “Wait,” said Bennett, sounding wounded. “Getting up and leaving in the middle of a conversation is very rude. Don’t you know that?”