by E. R. FALLON
Both men turned in my direction when I opened the door to the office and let in the cold air. The detective had thick salt-and-pepper hair and a trimmed mustache. We introduced ourselves, and Detective Burke, who held a notepad in his hand—I had interrupted him interviewing the clerk—said to me, “I have to warn you, you have your work cut out for you in that room.”
The clerk nodded in agreement, and his face paled, like he might have to excuse himself to go puke. He must have found the body in the room, the unlucky bastard. He looked fairly young, maybe a college student earning some extra money.
“You guys done, so my team and I can get started?” I asked Burke.
“Yeah. I just drove here to ask this guy a few more questions.” He pointed to the clerk.
Detective Burke’s phone rang and he took the call, leaving me to approach the desk to ask the clerk to confirm the room we were to clean. Most detectives were good people but they didn’t think our job was as important as theirs, and indeed it wasn’t as crucial. I often found the families of the victims, and the owners of the locations, knew more about where we were supposed to clean than the police.
Behind my shoulder Burke said, “Do you mind if I finish up here first? I just got another case assigned to me and have to leave.” He had finished his call before I could speak with the clerk.
I nodded and gave them some space, stepping back and waiting by the front door.
Detective Burke opened his notepad. “Let me see where I left off.” After a moment he said to the clerk, “Who was the room registered to, in what name?”
The office didn’t have a computer and the clerk opened a big ledger. He put his finger on the page and moved down the list of what must have been the names of the guests. “Alice,” he said, after a few minutes.
“Last name? Did they pay with a credit card?” the detective asked—at least I think that’s what he said. It was somewhat difficult to hear them at that distance.
I’d stopped paying attention after the mention of the name, Alice. My heart thumped so much I thought it actually could burst through my chest. Alice, the killer I knew, was in prison, where the world was kept safe from her. So, how could this be happening?
The young clerk shifted where he stood and avoid looking at Burke. “I didn’t get a last name from her. I do remember she paid with cash,” he said.
“Did she leave an address? Here, let me see that.” Detective Burke picked up the ledger and read it while standing. I waited for a sign that he’d found what he wanted but it never happened. He sucked his teeth and shook his head, and gave the ledger back to the young guy. “What did this woman look like? Older? Younger?” Burked rocked back and forth on the heel of his shoes as he waited for an answer.
It took the clerk so long to reply that in all honesty I assumed he would say he couldn’t remember the woman well enough to describe her. Then he said, “She was in her mid-thirties, and I remember that she was pretty.” He pointed at me standing by the door and I recoiled farther into the wall. “She had similar coloring to him.”
Burke regarded me with a new interest. “Do you think you could describe her to our sketch artist?” he asked the clerk.
“Excuse me,” I said fast, and went outside to get some fresh air before the situation could become more uncomfortable. I rested my back against the building’s façade and rubbed my forehead. What the hell was going on?
When I looked up, I saw Em and Josh sitting in the back of the open van. They were upright workers who always waited for my okay before putting on our gear and heading inside. Josh signaled to me and Em gave me an expectant look. I shook my head and motioned for them to wait. Then I went back into the office to hear the clerk telling Detective Burke, “…I don’t remember seeing the Alice lady with the dead guy. He must’ve waited outside or came to her room after.”
A short while later, the clerk confirmed the room for me, and the detective pulled me aside before he left. I prepared myself for him to ask questions about the clerk’s comparing Alice’s looks to mine. My palms turned warm, and sticky with sweat.
“Listen, between you and me, we didn’t find some parts of the body. The tongue in particular was cut out from the vic’s mouth, and it was nowhere to be found in the room or around the motel. Anyway, on the small chance that you guys dig something up, let me know.” He grinned. Up close, he had a scar on his face, a long, jagged line, like someone had cut him with a knife. His breath smelled a little stale and his clothes were wrinkled, but he’d been in and out of there all day and probably hadn’t had the chance to return home and freshen up.
I breathed in relief, and my body cooled, and then the liberation of not being questioned dissipated when I processed what he’d said. “Maybe she’s—the killer—feels silenced, that’s why they removed the tongue.” Detective Burke hesitated to agree with me but I perceived from his eyes that he did. “These parts, you really think they’re missing?” I asked.
“I know they are.”
I hesitated, and then asked, “Did the body have a message written on it?”
Burke put on a ‘Who told you about that?’ face.
As much as I didn’t want to give him Gilani’s name and possibly get the chief in trouble, given the insider information I had, I also knew lying could make Burke think I had something to do with the murders. “The chief might have mentioned it,” I said.
“Ah.” Detective Burke watched me with a contemplative gaze. “You know, the mother of the first kid who was killed ID’d his body at the morgue last night. I bet you didn’t know that?” There was a glint in his eyes. Was he testing me? “She said he was addicted to drugs and ran away from home, and she didn’t know where he was. Sad stuff.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “It is sad. I can refer her to an organization that supports victim’s families. My girlfriend runs it.”
“Is that right? I’ll let her know if I see her.”
“I don’t have a card on me.” I searched my pockets but knew I didn’t have one.
“She can look it up online or wherever.”
I gave him the name but noticed he didn’t write it down. Then he said, “And to answer your question: Yes.”
I knew he couldn’t tell me more, but I assumed the message on the body was what had been written on the others.
“Let us know if you find them, the body parts,” Burke said. “Seriously. Because we couldn’t.”
Judging by his tone, he wasn’t kidding.
“I personally believe the killer ate the parts right off the victim,” he said. “We didn’t find teeth marks on the vic but some parts of the body had been cut right out.”
“Ate them, without cooking them?” I said.
Way back when, the newspapers had said my mother roasted the parts of the victims she ate, like a witch, but I never noticed or smelled her doing anything like that in our kitchen, and Mack had told me the tabloid claims were bullshit. Mack said that just because some parts of the victims’ bodies were missing that didn’t mean the killer ate them, that my mother might have been what Mack called a collector, someone who fetishized their victims and kept pieces of their body, or entire parts, around. However, back in the day, they’d found nothing like that at the home I shared with her.
“What if the killer is simply collecting the body parts?” I asked Burke.
“Yeah, that’s possible, or maybe she—if you know about the writing, then the chief must’ve told you our theory it’s a female—prefers them very rare. Maybe she took the tongue home for later like a deli meat.” He started to smile but ceased when I leveled my gaze with his—he was a good few inches taller.
Josh, Em, and I might have sometimes sang while we worked, but I drew the line at joking about the victims.
“I have to leave now, and it’s about time you got started, unless you want to be here all night.” He winked. “The bathtub’s a mess. The whole bathroom is. It’s got white walls, white floor tiles, and a white tub. Doesn’t matter. Everything’s
red as hell now. The rest of the room’s not so bad. That bathroom, though?” Burke whistled in astonishment. “It would’ve made your life a lot easier if our girl had put down a plastic sheet in the tub, but it’s not like we could’ve asked her to do that, you know? Killed and then chopped up in a tub—what a way to go, right?”
“Yeah, what a way to go.” I glanced at the clerk, who pretended to be busy behind the desk while he listened to us with his white ears burning red.
I strode out of the office with the detective, who hurried to his car—I was right about which one was his—and I made a beeline for Josh and Em.
Chapter 6
I woke up to my ringtone playing on the bedside table the following morning.
“Who’s calling you this early?” Sammie asked next to me. She had her head on the pillow but her brown eyes were open, wide and clear with sleep. She moved under the covers to pull me back toward her.
I gently pushed her away. On top of the bed Paige stirred at our feet. Em and Josh and I had finished cleaning the motel late last night, and now, half awake, I thought the call was Gilani notifying me that another clean-up was needed, that another murder had happened. Except the ringtone wasn’t the one I used for the chief. I didn’t recognize it because Josh rarely called me at home. It stopped ringing and I started to text Josh to see what he wanted before the phone went to voicemail.
A text from Josh suddenly appeared on my screen. So sorry, chief. Want you to know I support you 100%.
“What the hell?” I said.
Sammie sat up and read the screen over my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
I motioned for her to wait a second and texted Josh back. Ok, thanks, but what are you talking about?
Josh wrote: Blog post.
What?
Crime Man. But it’s everywhere now. Got picked up by everyone. It’s on Twitter now. Facebook. It was trending. You didn’t know?
No. It’s about who?
You.
Me?
Yeah.
Somehow, I managed to explain to Sammie what was going on and asked her to get her phone and look up the website. She felt for her phone on the bookshelf adjacent to her side of the bed.
I sent Josh another text. What is it, some kind of story about our work? I almost jokingly asked whether it had gone global yet but I didn’t want to know before I’d read what it was about.
I don’t think I should send you the link. It’s a bunch of BS. You shouldn’t worry.
Sammie took in a sharp breath like her bare skin had made contact with something very cold. “Oh, fuck,” she said.
I sent Josh a final text. Sammie found it. And she hadn’t liked what she’d read.
Sammie hid her phone from me when I tried to peer around her shoulder to look. I dropped my phone on the bed and ducked around her waist and grabbed it from her. Paige leapt from our bed and paced nervously around the room. She hadn’t gone out for her morning walk yet. I started to read the screen.
“Please don’t read it. It’s bullshit,” Sammie said.
I ignored her and processed what had been written. The Crime Man blog was part of a notorious crime enthusiast website and moderated by someone who’d been dubbed ‘Crime Man.’ They also had a forum with members who acted as passionate online sleuths.
I tended to avoid visiting those websites because they were mostly filled with lurid crime scene photos and sensationalist speculation about famous and, sometimes, not so famous, murders. It was a more modern version of the kind of place that would have written about my mother and her crimes years ago. After dealing with the public onslaught my mother’s case brought into my younger life and seeing crime scenes in real life on a daily basis, I’d already read and viewed enough of those sorts of things for my taste.
Crime Man also featured a section where they “broke” what they deemed to be impending major crime stories. And that morning they’d “broke” the Seven Sisters murders. And my life along with it.
I struggled to see the blog post’s text through my tears, and I had to read the post twice to fathom that it was, indeed, about me. I wasn’t prepared for this.
BREAKING NEWS!
Seven Sisters city police hunt for serial killer in their city who leaves a message written into the flesh of the slaughtered: Miss me, Evelyn?
We received a tip that ‘Evelyn’ is the former name of Evan Lane, a Seven Sisters employee who heads the crime scene clean-up unit there. Coincidence or a troubling fact? After a little digging, we at Crime Man have discovered that almost two decades ago Ms. Lane’s mother, Alice Lane, was a serial killer of young men and a cannibal. She was known as ‘The Lovely Butcher.’
I could only skim the remainder of the post. They called me Alice’s ‘daughter.’ They hadn’t referred to me as transgender but they had implied that, and they’d deadnamed me by using my birth name instead of my chosen name. They weren’t blaming me for the murders, exactly, but the suggestion was there.
Sammie’s phone slipped from my fingers onto the blanket. I swung my legs over the bed and my feet touched the cold floor. My chest quaked with each sob I released. I disliked getting emotional but I couldn’t stop myself. Beside me, Sammie dangled her legs over the bed, too, and she seemed to be trying to figure out the best way to approach me. I don’t think she’d seen me cry like that before. I reached to where I’d dropped the phone behind me, and Sammie slid more to my side and prevented me from grabbing the phone. She put her slender arm around my waist and pulled me into her soft hip, tucking my larger frame into her.
“Don’t read it again,” she said. “You don’t need to see that crap.”
“I didn’t finish reading it. I need to read it,” I said, my voice shaking with emotion. “I need to read it—”
“No. Because it’s bullshit. I can’t stand that someone’s made you feel this way.” From Sammie’s voice, she could barely restrain her fury. “We are going to fight this.”
Paige, who had been pacing the bedroom, her nails clicking on the floor, pressed her nose against our legs. “She needs to go outside,” I said to Sammie. “Let’s take her out.”
Sammie dried my eyes with her sweater sleeve and then got up and pulled back the curtain at our bedroom window.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure there aren’t reporters parked outside our building,” she said.
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Do you think that’s possible?”
Sammie peered at me over her shoulder. “If that horrid story is online, then yes.”
I started to rise but Sammie read my thoughts. “Don’t turn on the TV,” she said.
At the other side of the bed, my phone received a text. I picked up the phone and Sammie hurried over to the bed. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just Em asking how I am. She must have heard. Geez, is there anyone who doesn’t know? Why don’t you take the dog out first?”
Sammie gave me a worried look.
“Please? I need a few moments to myself, and I can also text Em back. I’ll join you when I’m done,” I said. We took the same route around the nearby park every time we walked Paige in the morning.
“I’m not leaving the phones with you so that you can read that dreadful muck of a story again,” Sammie said.
I gave her a smile that would have been difficult to give anyone else under the circumstances, but Sammie wasn’t just anyone; she was my love. “I need to text Em back so I’ll need my phone. Please? Thanks.”
Sammie eyed me like she didn’t trust me. “Do you promise me you won’t look at that shit?”
I nodded. “Are there any reporters outside?” Our address wasn’t listed publicly, but if Crime Man had found out the information they had, then someone could have easily found our address.
“No. Not yet anyway. I’m going to wear a hat and sunglasses when I take Paige out, and I suggest you do the same.”
She made me laugh in spite of everything. “You’re kidding?” I said.
She sweet-talked Paige out of the bedroom, and when I heard her fastening the dog’s leash and the door opening into the hallway, I began to read the Crime Man post again. But I stopped myself before I read farther than I already had. I didn’t need to read it again to know what it said. Going behind Sammie’s back hadn’t felt right either. What had happened affected her as well as me. I loved Sammie, believed in her so much I trusted her with my life. I closed the website and texted Em to thank her for the support. I read her response three times before I grasped what she’d admitted to doing.
I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known how far they’d go.
When I didn’t reply, Em wrote more.
I’ve been a follower of the website for years. I leaked the story to them because I needed the money for Trent’s tuition so he could go to that private kindergarten next year. I was worried he wouldn’t be safe at the free school. That neighborhood isn’t safe. I’m so sorry. I never cashed their check and won’t ever.
I wrote: You should take the money to help your son. It’s already too late to change things. I shuddered at my impartial reply, and an unfamiliar sense of composure and restraint overcame me.
I got up and set my phone on the dresser instead of flinging it across the room at the wall like I wanted to. Then I sat on the bed and didn’t move or think about anything for a while. It wasn’t until Sammie re-entered the apartment with Paige leading her inside, that I felt the weight of Em’s betrayal pushing me down, a sensation so overwhelming and tremendous that I’d need someone to grab onto me and pull me to my feet or else I wouldn’t move.
Sammie closed the door and called out to me, “You never showed up so we came back home. I hope you weren’t reading that dreadful crap.”