David Sherwood went through a series of observations, none of which resulted in findings dramatically different from those discovered during examination of the prior victims. Then the medical examiner began a thorough examination of Peggy’s genitalia. The total lack of compassion exhibited by Sherwood as he manipulated Peggy’s body in a position compatible with his visual objectives seemed almost obscene to Sami. The woman lay dead. But did this give Sherwood or anyone else the right to violate her in such a disrespectful manner? Surely, Sami thought, there must be a more dignified way to examine her.
As Sherwood poked and prodded, he kept mumbling expletives under his breath that could not be interpreted. The usually emotionless medical examiner seemed agitated.
“The assailant wasn’t gentle with this one,” Sherwood said. He swiped his arm across his sweaty forehead. “This woman has been savagely assaulted.” He glanced at Sami. “And it appears that he raped her postmortem.”
Sami squeezed Al’s arm. “I’ll be waiting in the car.”
With his elbows planted on the kitchen table, Simon sat quietly with his chin perched on folded hands. His body shivered, dripping cold sweat. His mouth felt dry and tasted bitter. He wasn’t sure how he had managed such a lighthearted conversation with Detective Rizzo. He sat staring at the faded black-and-white picture of his mother. The years had colored the photograph with a magenta hue. In the background Christian music softly played on the radio. Simon’s mind was submerged in a whirlpool of drowning thoughts. Unlike in the past, when all his actions were calculated and strategic, every move well planned and tactical, Simon had lost his sense of self-preservation and been careless. He had delivered April to Peterson’s Department Store at midday, amid a flurry of holiday shoppers. What had he been thinking? His ability to make prudent decisions had been dangerously impaired.
The heavy fog had finally lifted.
All the explicit details once securely hidden in Simon’s subconscious, memories protecting a powerful need in him to preserve an angelic image of his mother, had been jarred loose by Peggy McDonald. Everything, all the sordid episodes sequestered in his mind since childhood, had suddenly assaulted his conscious thoughts like a hungry beast awakening from a long hibernation.
He lifted his mother’s photograph. “Why, Mother, why?”
He never knew his father. One day, before Simon was born, only weeks after his conception, Mikolai Kwosokowski—black lunch pail tucked under his arm and a sweat-stained baseball cap covering his curly brown hair—left for his job at the foundry and never returned. What little Simon had learned about his father had come from his Aunt Ana. His mother never spoke of Mikolai, and the one time Simon had been foolish enough to ask about his father, Ida Kwosokowski burned his tongue with a hot butter knife she’d heated over the gas flame of the kitchen stove.
Until last night, when Peggy McDonald unwittingly triggered a switch in Simon’s mind, illuminating dark caverns filled with ugly secrets from his childhood, he had always reveled in the false memory that his mother’s actions epitomized her profound love for him. Wasn’t it natural for a mother and son to touch each other? Didn’t disobedient children, sinners who broke God’s commandments, deserve to be harshly punished? All of his perceptions suddenly seemed invalid.
Recalling how many times he had been summoned to her bedroom, he fixed his stare on his mother’s seductive smile. He could still see her dimly lit bedroom, the white canopy bed, the blond wood colored dresser, walls painted soft yellow, cold hardwood floors beneath his feet. How innocent he had been as a child. How totally naïve as a young adult. Oh, how warm her body had been, pressed against his. The comfort. The security. Her skin so soft, like the satin fringe on an infant’s blanket. The contours of her shapely body, her cream-colored skin, breasts so round and firm…His life was a lie.
He tried to suppress the memory, but the slow-motion video was already playing.
On the threshold of puberty, Simon had just celebrated his twelfth birthday. Still awake, lying in his bed, unable to fall asleep, his mother, wearing her powder-blue bathrobe, walked in the bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Give your mother a hug, sweet boy.”
Simon sat up and she pulled him to her, squeezing him tightly, his face buried in her dirty-blonde hair. Her perfume smelled sweet. She loosened her grip and placed her hands on his shoulders.
“You are a young man now, Simon. A beautiful young man.”
She unfastened the top button of his pajama tops.
His mouth hung open, but he couldn’t speak.
She unfastened the second, then the third. She gently stroked the smooth skin on his hairless chest.
“Mother. Please.”
“Be silent, my son.” She forced him to lie on the pillow and pulled the comforter down. “Do you trust me, Simon?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Then close your eyes, my beautiful young man.”
He had always feared his mother, but never quite like this. His body trembled and his mouth hung open in stunned surprise. When he felt her soft hand slip inside his pajama bottoms, he jumped. Then, as if under a spell, he lay motionless. His mind raced with furious thoughts. At first he felt certain this was only a dream, that he’d awaken and it would be over. But as he felt himself getting more excited than he’d ever been before, he knew for certain this was real. That he could enjoy such an incestuous event sickened him to the point of nausea. But in spite of his disgust, he lay there. Frozen.
She grasped his pajama bottoms by the elastic waistband and slid them to his ankles. Then she stood, loosened the cloth belt holding the robe closed, slipped the robe off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. He wanted so badly to hop off the bed and charge out of the room, but he felt hypnotized by her perfect body and lovely face.
Before he could even think about what she’d do next, she knelt on the bed and straddled his body. “Do you love me, Simon?”
He couldn’t speak.
“Women are evil, my sweet boy. They will hurt you and deceive you. They will take your money and steal your love, and then they will leave you alone and miserable. One day soon, God will call upon you to be his special ambassador. You will have the honor of cleansing the doomed souls and impure hearts of unholy women. I will always be there for you, my wonderful son. My blood runs through your veins. Mother will guide you and nurture you and help you do God’s work. I am the only woman in God’s world who truly cares about you. Never forget that.”
And now, Simon’s body and soul belonged to his beloved mother.
When she finished with him, she whispered in his ear. “Happy birthday, sweet boy.” She kissed his cheek, hopped off the bed, put on her robe, and left the room without saying another word. Simon knew for certain that this was just the beginning of his journey into manhood.
Simon clenched his fists and pounded his mother’s picture lying on the table. Rage welled in his gut. Repeatedly, he punched the photograph until his knuckles were swollen and bloody. How he wished his long-dead mother could feel the pain. He had always been a righteous man, had never been vengeful or vindictive. His lifelong goal was to carry out God’s will, to purify the sinners of the world. Revenge was not in God’s plan, yet the Bible, the written word of God, proclaimed that an eye for an eye was just. Hadn’t his mother quoted this exact proverb to him when he’d cut off April’s ear? How, then, would his mother atone for her sins? How could Simon cleanse her soul?
As if a suffocating weight were lifted from his chest, his soul purged of its suffering, Simon felt as if he could breathe again. What had happened in the past was God’s will, and who was Simon to question his Creator’s plan? After all, it was not uncommon for God to test his children. His mother would indeed be punished and he would participate in her cleansing. To dwell on the events of the past, to be riddled with regrets and everlasting analysis, would only serve to sabotage Simon’s appointment as a divine messenger. Continuing with godly duties was the only thing that mattere
d.
Simon stood tall and took a deep breath. His commitment to carry out God’s wishes was now fortified with a renewed resolve.
More than an hour had passed since Simon had struggled with the memories of his twelfth birthday. Although he still felt unsettled, his emotions had calmed down. He sat at the kitchen table and glanced at the unread San Diego Chronicle. Under the front-page headline was a story about the serial killer. He read it with great interest. The writer said that an undisclosed source claimed that the homicide department was close to an arrest. Nothing more than PR hype, he thought, a ploy to ease the public outcry. The article, of course, did not name the detectives, but Simon was reasonably sure that Sami Rizzo was one of the detectives assigned to the case. Her performance as a homicide detective was public record. No one in the department had a better history of arrests. Who else would they assign to such a high-profile case?
When he’d met her Thanksgiving Day, his interest in her had been merely that of a competent physical therapist and a servant of God. His offer to treat her back was motivated by a genuine desire to unselfishly help a sister in need. After all, weren’t all of God’s children brothers and sisters? Although he sensed that she was quite smitten by him, as were many women he encountered, he had never shared any of their romantic aspirations. Let the sinners play their foolish games. Detective Rizzo was a homicide detective. The homicide detective investigating the deaths of the women he had cleansed. He could no longer consider her a sister in need. She posed a serious threat to Simon’s mission. He wasn’t yet sure how things would progress, but he would not allow Detective Rizzo to foil God’s plan.
NINE
“Mr. McDonald,” Sami said, “is this a convenient time for you to talk, or should I call back?” Considering that his wife had recently been butchered and his daughter was missing an ear, Sami guessed that the last thing he wanted was to talk to a cop.
Silence.
“Mr. McDonald?”
“What do you want?”
Sami sat and rested her elbows on her desk. “Would it be possible for us to speak with April sometime this afternoon?”
“She just got out of the hospital, detective.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McDonald, but this is really important.”
“Hasn’t she been through enough?”
Indeed she has, Sami thought. “If there’s any chance for us to apprehend the man who—”
“I’m not going to subject my daughter to an interrogation.”
“I give you my word, she will be interviewed under the guidance of a certified child psychologist.”
“And that’s supposed to ease my mind?”
“Mr. McDonald, I know how difficult this is, but—”
“Tell me, detective, how do you presume to know what I’m feeling?”
“I can only imagine—”
“What can you imagine?” He paused for just a breath. “Do you have any children, detective?”
The question caught her by surprise. “I have…a two-year-old daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“Angelina.”
His voice softened. “Do you love her?”
At first Sami thought his question was rhetorical, then realized he expected an answer. “With all my heart.”
“How would you feel if some maniac chopped off one of her ears, if for the rest of her life she were disfigured?”
Sami’d been plagued by such a scenario many times. “It’s inconceivable for me to imagine the horror I’d feel.”
“Let me tell you what it’s like, detective. Firsthand. My life is pretty much over. No, I’m not going to eat a bullet or OD on amphetamines. I’m grief stricken, but not insane. No one—no matter how strong—bounces back from something like this. If Peggy had been killed in a car accident, or a plane crash, or even if she’d died of cancer, I could deal with that, digest it as the luck of the draw. I’m a fatalist, detective. I know that our lives are hanging by a thread. If she had died a normal death, I would eventually heal and start over again.” His voice was shaky and he kept sniffing. “That fucking monster crucified my wife, hung her on a cross, and tortured her. How do you recover from something like that?” He paused for a minute and sighed into the receiver. “I have a thriving law practice. I’m physically fit, and for the most part I’ve got the world at my fingertips. None of it means anything anymore. Every time I look at my daughter I’m going to be reminded. When I close my eyes I can see that bastard pounding nails through her wrists. I can see him raping her.” Now he was sobbing. “Detective, when the medical examiner performed the autopsy…did he discover that Peggy was…pregnant?”
“We were aware of that, Mr. McDonald,” she almost whispered. “I’m so, so sorry for your loss.” She paused to regain her composure. “Please help us catch this guy. April might have seen something that will give us a lead. You don’t want him to kill again, do you?”
“What I want, Detective Rizzo, is to watch him roast in the electric chair.”
“Then help us.”
Again silence. “With all that’s going on right now”—his voice was unsteady—“funeral arrangements and”—there was a long pause. “I need some time.”
Sami wanted to push him but sensed it would be wiser to back off. “You have my number, Mr. McDonald. Call me anytime, day or night.”
Sami thought about canceling her dinner plans with Simon several times throughout the day. After all, if she had any hope of solving the case, she had no business going out on a date. On the other hand, as Simon so convincingly pointed out, she had to eat anyway. Maybe she’d meet him for a quick dinner and end the evening early. As a homicide detective, working nine to five didn’t solve cases. Besides, in the event of a sudden development, she could be reached on her cell phone or pager.
Sami couldn’t decide what to wear. The look she searched for was casual elegance, a term she’d first heard while watching a documentary on E! As of yet, she still hadn’t quite figured out what it meant. Supposedly it was a California thing. In choosing the right outfit, Sami had three goals: to appear fashionable, to camouflage her generous figure, and to look sexy without feeling slutty. A formidable challenge considering that her closets and dressers were full of clothes that would no doubt be rejected by the Salvation Army.
She rarely shopped for clothes and hated the thought of it. With the exception of the tailored business suits she purchased for work, most of her outfits were an accumulation of inappropriate birthday and Christmas gifts, presents from her mother that Sami truly should have returned, or at least donated to a charity for the visually impaired. Sami appreciated her mother’s rare attempts to please her, but unfortunately, her mother’s flair for fashion was as lackluster as her zest for life. For years Sami’d pleaded with her mother, begged her not to buy gifts. But year after year the avalanche continued. Her closets were full of oversize blouses, thick woolen sweaters designed to keep Eskimos warm, and an assortment of slacks and skirts in archaic styles, most of which were far too dull for Sami’s taste. To further punctuate her bland wardrobe, on every occasion worthy of a gift, Tommy DiSalvo had given her, without fail, the world’s most complete collection of tawdry jewelry. Much of the jewelry was so hideous Sami wouldn’t wear it to a Halloween party.
On this first, perhaps most important date, Sami wanted to impress Simon, maybe even entice him just a little, but she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. Sami had already paraded around the living room with five outfits at which her mother seemed unenthused. She didn’t really want to rely on the fashion sense of a fifty-six-year-old widow who’d been wearing the same sauce-stained apron and faded blue duster for more than a decade, but she had no choice. Much of what Sami had modeled were outfits her mother had purchased, which made Josephine’s disfavor outrageously ironic. Maybe, in some perverted way, Sami’s mother had purposely bought her gaudy clothes?
Angelina—bless her dear heart—tried to offer support. Each time Sami did her runway strut aroun
d the coffee table, Angelina had said, “You look sooo pretty, Mommy.” She loved Angelina’s unwavering allegiance, but knew she’d get her daughter’s endorsement even if she paraded around in her sweats.
It had been more than a year since Sami’s last romantic misadventure. After being heckled by her partner, Al, who incessantly warned that she desperately needed to get laid before “the love canal closed for good,” she foolishly placed a personal ad in the San Diego Press, a trendy periodical jammed with singles ads. She’d placed it more to amuse Al than to feed some quixotic desire. She’d written what she thought was a clever ad. The headline read: Are You My Romeo? The body of the ad was poetically composed with a Shakespearean wit.
Of the thirteen men responding to Sami’s woman-seeking-man ad, she’d eliminated nine of them via telephone conversations. Evidently, many of the eligible bachelors in Southern California needed a course in remedial reading. They responded to her ad with little consideration for what Sami was seeking in a mate, hoping, apparently, to charm her into compromising her standards. Two men admitted that they were married, and without the slightest hesitation proclaimed that they were looking for “something on the side.” Neither had difficulty expressing exactly what they were seeking. Sami, amused by their outlandish proposal suggested that they visit Las Vegas, where prostitutes were abundant.
One elderly gentleman, soft-spoken and very polite, wanted to be Sami’s sugar daddy. She’d never consider such a venal arrangement, of course, but when he announced that he was worth more than a hundred million dollars, Sami hesitated for just a minute before hanging up the telephone. Three men were struggling through gut-wrenching divorces, and Sami sensed each needed a therapist more than a soul mate. One of the men she met for coffee, who on the telephone spoke with the same charisma as a Kennedy, completely misrepresented himself. The supposedly tall, fit, attractive thirty-five-year-old attorney was in actuality a squatty, nearly bald, forty-five-ish librarian. Not that Sami was superficial. But she certainly wanted a partner who visually stimulated her, and she wasn’t yet desperate enough to sleep with Mr. Magoo. Or a bold-faced liar.
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