“Christ, it’s just that thinking about her that way makes me so fucking crazy.”
“You mean...as a...?”
“Yeah, a ghost. If she’s a ghost it means she’s dead. And I don’t want her to be dead.”
“When did these visitations start?”
“I don’t think they’re visitations. I think they’re dreams!”
“Okay, dreams. When did these...” Hardwick cleared his throat. “When did these dreams begin?”
“Just before I got out of prison. One night I saw her. But then, a couple of weeks ago I saw her again.”
“And you never saw her before that first incident?”
Wolf shook his head. “Never.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“She just appeared in my cell. It was in my mind, doc. It wasn’t real.”
“Okay, that’s established. Even so, I think we should explore this some. Tell me, what did she look like?”
“What do you think she looked like? She looked like a ghost.”
“Give me some details,” Hardwick said.
“She was wearing a gauzy dress of some kind, almost see through, and her eyes were empty, like she wasn’t really seeing me.”
“And did she communicate in any way with you?”
Wolf shook his head. No fucking way was he going to admit any of that, especially the part about them making love. Hardwick already thought he was crazy. “It wasn’t real, I tell you. It was a dream.”
“You’ve been having a lot of dreams lately, haven’t you, Danny?”
Wolf nodded. “Yeah, too many. If you want the truth, I don’t think I can take much more of it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know, doc, I’m talking about choices. We all have them.” Wolf gave the doctor a bleak smile.
“I see,” said Hardwick. “Let’s change the subject for a moment, shall we?”
“Glad to.”
“Tell me about the band.”
“The band?”
“That’s right. Your work. You are a singer in a rock band, are you not?”
“Yeah.”
“A most interesting profession.”
“If you say so.”
Hardwick seemed amused. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
Wolf shrugged. “It’s a job. Mostly we do dives, playing for a bunch of drunks, druggies and vampire wannabes. It pays the bills.”
“Vampire wannabes?” Hardwick raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, that’s what I call them. You know, these goth chicks that dress all in black and slither around from bar to bar like every night is Halloween.” Wolf shrugged. “Fucking nut jobs if you ask me. The city’s full of ‘em. Maybe it’s the only way they can get noticed.”
“Interesting observation,” Hardwick said. “You think they do it for attention?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I think it’s complicated. On the one hand they’re saying I want to be an individual, I want to be left alone to be myself and do my own thing, and they don’t even realize that they look just like all the other idiots around them. I don’t know. I think these days a lot of people are just lost.”
Hardwick smiled. “It seems you have the mind of a poet.”
Wolf grunted a small noise of derision. “I don’t know about that. Being up on stage gives me a chance to observe people. There’s this place I go when I’m performing that’s almost trancelike. It allows me to really see people and I make up these little lives for them.”
“So there are usually lots of women around when your band plays.”
“Sure, groupies. You know.”
“You like groupies?”
“Yeah, they’re all right. In a sense they give me my paycheck so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on them.”
“And you like booze, too, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You like booze and you like women.”
“Yeah, Doc. What about it? That explains about ninety-nine percent of the guys on planet earth. How about you?”
“Tell me about them,” Hardwick said, readjusting himself in his seat.
Wolf squinted at the psychiatrist. “Them?”
“The groupies you mentioned a moment ago.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Do any of them go home with you?”
Wolf was speechless for a long moment as he stared at the doctor. Finally he shook his head.
“Why not?”
Wolf looked toward the window. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just a private person.”
“Private? You mean in your surroundings, in the place where you live? You don’t want anybody to violate your sanctity?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s it.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
“Well, what do you want me to tell you?”
The psychiatrist sat forward in his seat and stared at Wolf. “The truth would be helpful. There are other reasons why you don’t take women home with you, other than your privacy violation issues. Am I right?”
Wolf watched the doctor for a long silent moment, amazed and a little bit afraid of his keen perception.
“Danny?”
“Okay, doc, maybe I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you don’t have permanent relationships with women because you’re afraid?”
Wolf gave his head a quick little nod.
“You’re afraid of what might happen?”
Wolf frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Are you afraid of women, Danny?”
“Of course not!”
“You told me you were afraid. What is it that you’re afraid of? Sex?”
“Hell no!”
“What then? Are you afraid you’ll harm one of these women?”
Chapter 31
Wolf sprang from the couch, rage and revulsion both blossoming in his gut. “What the hell are you getting at?” he said, glaring across the desk at the psychiatrist.
“Please sit down,” Hardwick said firmly.
Wolf hesitated for a short moment before sitting back down, his rage simmering, making him sick inside.
“I thought I’d made it clear that these kinds of outbursts would not be tolerated?”
“I’m sorry, doc. I do want to cooperate, but Christ, I couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Are you absolutely sure of that?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Why are you asking me this?”
“What then, Danny? What are you afraid of?”
Wolf licked his lips. “I don’t know, Doc. Jesus, I don’t know.”
“But you do have...sex with women, don’t you?” The doctor was sitting forward again in anticipation.
“Yeah, so?”
“Where, then? Their place?”
“Sometimes, but usually it’ll be after a gig, in an alleyway or a men’s room or a band room. I don’t know. What fucking difference does it make?”
Hardwick drummed his fingers and waited.
“I know it sounds sleazy,” Wolf said. “But that’s the way it’s been lately. I always send them away afterwards. I think it’s because I don’t dare take a chance on a real relationship. I haven’t been able to have one since Siri. I guess I’m just one fucked up individual.”
Hardwick did not reply.
“I just can’t explain it, doc.”
“Tell me more about what’s happening in your life now.”
“Not much to tell really. I work until two, two-thirty every night, and then I go home and drink myself stupid, hoping it will help to usher in the darkness so that I might have a few hours of peace. But lately nearly every time I sleep the dreams take over. They’re like out-of-body experiences. I just can’t explain it. If you want the truth, I think there are some blank spots in my memory, things I should be able to remember, but I can’t, or don’t want to. They try to surface sometimes, and I can almost reach them,
then the dreams start and I end up pushing it all back in again not wanting to know. I think I’m afraid if I do remember it’ll be the end of me. But maybe that’s what this is all coming to. To tell you the truth, doc, lately I’ve been seriously considering...”
“Ending it all?” Hardwick finished for him.
Wolf stared across the desk at the doctor and said nothing.
There was a newspaper hidden in the shadows on Hardwick’s desk and he pushed it into the light, toward Wolf. “Did you see this morning’s paper, Danny?”
Wolf glanced down at the headline then quickly looked away. “No,” he said trying to hide the emotion he felt. His heart was pounding and blood was rushing to his head.
“Read the headline aloud.”
“What?”
Hardwick leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, his jaw firmly set. “I said read it.”
“I don’t want to read it.”
“Not debatable. Read the headline.”
“You fuck! What are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m trying to help you. Don’t you know that, Danny? Now read the headline.”
Wolf stared fixedly down at the headline for a long moment before proceeding. Finally he read:
“CROSS MY HEART KILLER CLAIMS SECOND VICTIM.”
Lances of fear stabbed into Wolf’s heart and he could barely breathe.
“Her name was Amy Salinger,” Hardwick said. “She was found at the city landfill yesterday morning stabbed to death with a cross carved on her body.”
“Oh, Christ,” Wolf said.
“You knew her, didn’t you?”
“No!”
Hardwick stared.
Wolf’s heart was racing in his chest like a trapped animal.
“I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”
For a long silent moment Wolf stared down at the headline while his heart hammered in his chest. Finally he said, “Okay, I knew her.”
“And you knew Janet Own didn’t you?”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I suspected.”
“How?”
“I pride myself on my intuitiveness.”
Wolf’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “No,” he said. “This is bullshit. You’ve had someone following me. You’ve got some sort of deal going with the cops and the parole board.”
“Did you kill those girls, Danny?”
“No!”
A buzzer sounded on Hardwick’s desk, loud and accusing. Wolf jumped. Hardwick looked appraisingly at his patient before picking up the phone. “I told you, I did not want to be disturbed this afternoon!” He stopped and listened for a moment before saying, “Oh dear, I see! All right, tell them I’ll be there in half an hour. No, that’s okay. I’ll be there. Thanks, Jane. Sorry I was so short with you.”
Hardwick hung up and gave Wolf a grim look. “I hope you don’t mind, Danny, but I have an emergency. One of my patients just attempted suicide and I must get to the hospital. Would it be possible for you to come back...let’s see...” He looked at the calendar on his desk. “How about tomorrow, say three o’clock?”
“I don’t know,” Wolf replied. “You’re making blatant accusations. I’m thinking about going to the parole board and telling them about it. I don’t like your methods and I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
Hardwick glared at Wolf. “You go then, Danny. But what do you think will happen when they find out it’s been nearly a month since you’ve seen me? And what do you think they’ll do when they find out you knew both the dead girls?”
Wolf glared angrily at Hardwick. “You fuck!” he said. “I didn’t kill those girls.”
Hardwick stared. “Portland’s a small city with minimal crime, and now we have two murdered women in the last several weeks, and as it turns out, you knew them both. You screwed them both.”
“That doesn’t mean I killed them.”
“Will I see you tomorrow, Danny?” Hardwick’s stare was hard and unyielding.
“I’ll be here,” Wolf said, “but I don’t like this.”
“Noted,” Hardwick replied. He stood up and escorted Wolf to the door. “Now I must be going. I’ll expect to see you at three o’clock sharp tomorrow.”
“Sure, doc, whatever you say.”
Chapter 32
Wolf left the psychiatrist’s office and took the elevator down to Congress Street. He walked the crowded streets for an hour or so, trance-like, numb, his mind heavy with the burden of the two dead women. Was it possible that he could be committing these horrible crimes? Even as the question arose he remembered the dream he had not dared mention to Hardwick, seeing through a monster’s eyes, carrying a dead woman in his arms, the mud and blood on his clothing, and he knew that something beyond his understanding was at work here.
He’d been wishing for an end to this nightmare. It’s why he’d taken this last desperate step of going back to Hardwick after storming out on him nearly a month ago. And now Hardwick was accusing him of the same things he himself had seriously been considering.
In the years since the illness had taken over his life, Wolf had come to some harsh conclusions. Rarely did another human being give a shit as to whether you lived or died. It was useless to think otherwise, useless to believe that anyone felt anything but contempt for you: I want to help you; I’ll never leave you; trust me forever and always. He had never been loved. Yes, he had made love to women, true, so many he could not keep count, and in the throes of passion more than a few had professed love for him, but had any of it been real love? Weren’t those just words spoken in passion, too soon forgotten? Siri was the only one he had ever believed. Now she was gone and he did not know what to believe.
Wolf understood the harsh realities of his present situation. Hardwick did not wish him well. The man had an agenda; it was almost certainly the case. Hardwick had a perverse sense of the macabre, no doubt about it, and he was using it to squeeze some sort of twisted confession out of Wolf. But how could he confess to crimes he had no memory of committing? True, everything else was there: seeing through the eyes of a monster as he carried a dead woman along a dark and muddy road; blasphemous religious symbols everywhere he looked; the dreams of a ghost woman come back to haunt him.
They wish to destroy you, Danny. Don’t let them.
He could not understand why anyone would want to destroy him. He was just a musician, an ex-con, no threat to anyone. Truth was he seemed to be on a course of self-destruction. Maybe that’s what Siri meant. Each night he crawled into the pit and flirted with demons. He needed to find a way out. He didn’t like the darkness down there.
Wolf realized that he had stopped on the sidewalk and was staring trancelike into the reflective glass of a store window. A figure from within the store began moving toward him at an accelerated rate. He began to panic as he had a sudden vision of a giant and hairy man-thing attacking him from within. He took a step back in recoil until he realized that his attacker was coming up swiftly from behind him and that he was seeing the reflection in the glass. He tried to turn, but in a sudden blur of dizzying motion, hands attached to powerful arms grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, slamming him face-first into the window, rattling the huge plate of safety glass in its frame. He felt the searing pain as his skull connected with the solidness of the glass. A powerful vice-like hand gripped his wrist and gave his arm an upward twist causing him to cry out in pain. He gasped for breath and tried to scream but in his panic his lungs would not take in air.
“What the fuck you doing skulking around my city, Wolf?”
At the sound of that voice Wolf felt both relief and a powerful surge of hate. He knew the voice of his attacker, and even though he despised the man, he felt a sudden and dizzying wave of gratitude that what had hold of him was a man, not a monster. In an adrenaline rush of cold fury, Wolf broke free of his assailant’s grasp, spun around and faced him. “Fuck you, asshole,” he spat viciously.
Detective Frank Cavanaugh grabbe
d Wolf by the throat with a powerful right hand, slamming the back of his head against the window and putting intense choking pressure on his wind pipe. To Wolf, Cavanaugh’s eyes looked insane, like those of a cruel and desperate creature on the cusp of a kill. The thought occurred to him that perhaps his mind had seen the detective for what he really was; some sort of beast.
“If it was up to me you’d still be getting fucked up the ass by degenerate lifers,” Cavanaugh said. His grin was diabolical.
Between gasps of breath, Wolf said, “I...paid...for...my crimes...you...fascist...pig!”
“You didn’t pay for shit, you fucking murderer,” Cavanaugh said.
Wolf’s eyes were rolling in their sockets and he was making little choking sounds as Cavanaugh strengthened the hold on his throat. Finally he let go and Wolf staggered forward. almost falling.
“The Lieutenant wants to see you down at the station, pronto.”
“Is that what this is about, you fuck?”
Cavanaugh raised his hand. “You want more of this?”
Wolf shook his head and massaged his sore neck. “What’s he want with me?”
Cavanaugh made a face like a man who’d discovered dog shit on his shoe. “Just get in the car.” He pointed curbside.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You want to be?”
Wolf shook his head.
“Then get in the fucking car.”
Wolf did as he was told, and as they drove through town a cold rain began to fall.
Chapter 33
At the station Wolf was ushered into Jennings’ office.
“Sit down,” Jennings said.
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Suit yourself. What happened to your head?”
Wolf touched his forehead and winced. His fingers came away wet. “City’s finest,” he said. “His wife and dog must be out of town this week.”
Jennings sighed and shook his head, amazed at how close Wolf had actually come to the truth of the matter. He pointed at a door to his right. “Go clean yourself up.”
Wolf went into the bathroom, took his time cleaning the blood off with a wet paper towel, thinking about the morning Cavanaugh had come to his apartment to arrest him for the murder of a man he didn’t kill. He remembered how cruel and insensitive Cavanaugh had been, and wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to take the bastard down. When the bleeding stopped he stepped up to the toilet bowl. unzipped his fly and took a piss.
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