A Good and Useful Hurt

by Aric Davis

  Deb said, “You can talk to them if you like, but I don’t know how much you’ll learn.” She sounded discouraged and bone-weary.

  Mike steeled himself. These were people, damaged and destroyed like Deb, and bidden back by him. He needed to make this worth it for them and for him. He looked at Deb, took a deep breath, and then turned to the others and said, “Angela?”

  The first of the three mysteries strode forward to stand at the table. Mike could see the pain on her face as she moved. She dragged her left leg behind her, and Mike assumed it broken just above the ankle, where it folded at an irregular angle.

  “I’m so sorry, Angela. I’ve spoken with your mother and father, and they want you to know that they love you. I think your father is going to try to speak with you.”

  Her eyes, before dull and black as the heart on Mike’s hand, shone. All at once she was radiant. The wounds mottling her face began to peel and then faded altogether. Mike watched her leg straighten out and her foot pull itself up from under her.

  He felt dizzy and had to force himself to breathe. He called to the next woman: “Veronica.”

  This one stepped forward to stand next to the now beaming Angela. The second girl wasn’t damaged as badly as Angela had been, but her jaw hung at an awkward angle, and Mike could see it was broken as Deb’s had been. The girl wobbled and shuddered as she stood before him.

  “Your mother and sister were very kind to me. They listened to us and agreed that anything that could help your killer be put to justice, no matter how ridiculous it might sound, was worth doing. They didn’t cry, but they told me how much they missed you and how special you were to them. Your mom believed me completely. I think she liked that you could still be out there in some form or another.”

  Just as with the first girl, Mike watched her come to life. The eyes were the most beautiful part of it, but the rest of the changes were as miraculous. The bruises began to fade, and the jaw slowly reset itself with an audible click as it snapped into place. In moments, this one was glowing as well, radiant instead of the shadow she’d been, a reflection of life instead of death.

  “Pauline.”

  She stepped forward next to her sisters, pale and beaten, one cheek shattered, torn to the bone, the eye above it weeping lazily down. Blood had dried in her nose and on her upper lip, curling over her mouth in a cruel and crimson frown.

  Mike looked again to Deb. She met his gaze, but did nothing more. He turned back to the girl, unsure of what to say, and let the words fall out.

  “Your family is fine.”

  Mike faltered and stopped. He let his voice regain its timbre, and continued. “Your family is fine, just as busy as always, but they still were able to help us find you, so that you can help us find the man who hurt you. We’re here to avenge what happened, and to make it so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  Mike thought he’d failed. Nothing was happening—she was still there and not there. She looked cruel, menacing, and Mike wanted out of the room. It hadn’t worked. His eyes were locked with hers, but he saw the other girls approach her. First it was Veronica taking the still-damaged girl by her shoulders, and then Angela was with her, holding Pauline about the waist, and then Deb and Annie were there with them. Pauline was obscured by the other women, and Mike was unsure of what he should be doing.

  The women stepped away from Pauline, and she was as they now were, her wounds healed, her eyes and mouth radiant.

  When Mike looked around the room he could see that the walls had been repaired—there was no more fuzziness, the mirror was a mirror again.

  All of them were beaming at him now, and his own smile felt about to split his face in two. But then he sobered. He had work to do—they all did.

  “I need to know everything. If I’m going to have any chance at all to find this guy, you need to tell me about him. I’m sorry, but even the really bad stuff.”

  Pauline said, “He was tall. He said his name was Phil. He helped me load the groceries into my car once; I remembered him when he attacked me because of how tall he was. I’d been attracted to the man who helped me load my car; I almost asked him for his phone number. But the one who attacked me was different. He was angry, and the rage made him hideous. He hated me; he hated all of us. Not just all of us here, but all women. There’s no way that those around him don’t know that he hates women. I don’t think anyone who knows him could understand how much he hates women, but they have to have seen something. It’s all that he is.”

  She stepped back, still radiant, still beaming. Veronica spoke.

  “Pauline is right, he was tall, better than six foot five inches—I know that because he was taller than my boyfriend, who’s six foot five. He had green eyes. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but she’s right, he hated us. He had a stubby nose—it didn’t fit well with the rest of his face. He smelled like a machine shop and egg-rolls, and he wore gray coveralls. He had a thick, one- or two-day beard, and he wept when I died. I could see the tears as my vision faded. The cord was tight but didn’t hurt anymore, nothing hurt. So it was just senses as alive as they could ever get, and I watched him cry and turn from me. There was still hate, but there was regret too. It looked like deep regret, and I’m not sure whether he wanted to kill me again, had regrets for how fast it had gone, or if he really felt bad for what he’d done to me. Either way, he left quick enough. I was all used up, and the last thing I saw was him walking out the door. His boots were steel-toed and had at least a one-inch heel.”

  Annie said, “His name was Phil—I saw it on his jacket, but I really knew afterwards. I’d never seen him before; he just came out of nowhere. His hair was brown and cut close to his head, but what I noticed first was his height. He enjoyed hurting me, and I could tell that he wanted more time. When I saw the rope it was almost a relief. I hate myself for that, but it was. I still wanted to live, but if he was going to keep hurting me the way that he was…”

  Annie stopped and turned to them. Angela began to speak.

  “He caught me leaving my apartment, and threw me back in—that’s how my leg got broken. I fell on my back and tried to stand, and he stomped down on it to keep me from running. I don’t think he meant to break it, not like that anyways. I was howling, and I could tell he didn’t like that because he started beating me. I’m pretty sure I would have been dead with or without the rope. He wanted to rape me, but he was impotent—something about the leg was wrong for him. I could see it on his face that there was a certain way it was supposed to go, and when it hadn’t he became infuriated. Everything the other girls said is true. He’s big and mean, and he hates women. I also think he works at one of the factories by Thirty-sixth Street. My dad used to do machine repairs there, and the coveralls they gave him looked just like the ones the man had on. They had the same grease and metal smells I used to love on my dad because it smelled like work, and I could remember when I was very small and he got laid off.

  “He’ll kill again, and he’ll keep killing because it’s what he loves. It’s his passion. For him it’s not a game or even a power thing anymore—it’s just how things are to be for him.”

  Angela stepped back, and Mike ran his eyes over them before stopping at Deb. She smiled at him and said, “We need the rest—it’s not enough yet.”

  “I know. Do any of you remember anything else, like what kind of car he had, or any other distinguishing features?” Their silence was answer enough, and one after the other the girls began to leave the room. When they were gone, it was just him and Deb.

  “Will it always be all of us now?”

  “Until this is finished. Then it can be just us again.”

  “I miss you. It’s hard.”

  “Worry about that later. Find the rest—bring as many as you can.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Mike saw Doc’s car through his apartment window, and he trotted down before Doc shut off the engine. Doc looked tired but happy; Mike knew the feeling. Sleep with them in your head made r
eal rest impossible. Mike felt better than he had the night before, but it still wasn’t a true night’s sleep.

  Doc said, “How was your research?”

  “Good. We need more information, though.”

  “Similar story on my end. They did their best, but perhaps there’s only so much that can be taken from them. It’s worrisome.”

  “How so?”

  “We have five of the eight we know of already in our program, so to speak. Only three remain, and the chances of our luck holding and those three also having been cremated is slim at best. More troubling is that even if they have been, and we can contact them, there’s no guarantee they’ll know any more than the others. The girls are doing well to remember what they can, but I wonder if the attacks were just too damaging. A camera with a shattered lens can only capture so much of a picture.”

  “We need to try.”

  “We will, have no doubt of that, but I think we also need to be ready to reconcile ourselves to the idea that we may fail. It’s possible that we will, and we can’t torment ourselves over that possibility. It would be a shame to come this far just to fail, but we’re doing all that we can.”

  “I’m not going to able to deal with failing. They were angry with me last night, I could feel it. I think they could tear us inside out if they wanted to.”

  Doc’s brow furrowed. “Angry? How do you mean?”

  “I was in the interrogation chamber again. There was screaming out in the hall when I first arrived, screaming and yelling. Deb and Annie were fine when they walked in the room, but the next three looked as they had when they died. They looked dead, but it wasn’t like with Deb—it was awful. So I talked to them for a little bit, and they healed right in front of me. I could see their eyes change from black into how they were supposed to look, full of light and alive.”

  “You went to them with no love. You knew Deb and Annie, so you had love for them, but the other three were just victims to you. Dear God.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose that they could have hurt you in some way. We have no way of knowing if they even could, of course, but how could we know until it was too late? Maybe they were hostile because you saw them as a tool, as just the dead. Mike, I think you need to love them. You’d gone to sleep tired and indifferent, and they came to you angry and dangerous. You talked them out of it, but how awful, for them and you.”

  “What did you do that was different?”

  “They came to me whole. The forest I met them in was full of wildlife, and they came with flowers in their hair. They were full with life, and they could feel the love from each other and from me.”

  “Even Deb? She’s been so cold.”

  “Mike, Deb was raped and murdered, and she’s been resurrected in our minds to try and catch the man who did it. It’s not unreasonable for her to be angry. Deb was a strong woman, and she was made powerless. She wants revenge, and everything else, even you, is secondary. You need to embrace them if we’re to cull all of the information on this man. We need you at your best in order to get the best from them. Fall asleep with love for them. Love all of them; tell them of the world and the sun and the smells of wind and food. Remind them of life. I’m sure Deb told you that she would fade the less you thought of her; well so too would the memories of life fade from them. The more life you give them, the more they can give back.”

  Mike was sweating and rolled down the window of the car. Could he have been that close to death? It wasn’t hard to figure Doc was right, but what would have happened if he’d died there? Would the human still live while the mind died, or would the physical toll on his mental being cause him to die in real life? He shuddered and asked, “Who do you want to talk to next?”

  “I think the family of Jessica Drake. She was the second victim, nineteen, died last summer on break from college. She was killed just a few blocks away from where Angela was murdered.”

  “Let me guess, by some factories?”

  “Exactly, just a mile or so from a large manufacturing district. I get the feeling that Jessica wasn’t that close with her parents.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Most kids on leave from college are looking to save on expenses, but she had an apartment, even when she was away from school. It’s just a feeling I got from the online videos of the mother reacting to the crime. She looks upset but more weary than miserable, almost as though it was just one more problem in a life full of them.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “I don’t expect it to be. I brought my checkbook just in case.”

  Mike turned to Doc with his mouth hanging open. “You think she’s gonna fucking charge us?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.”

  Doc turned the car onto the highway, and Mike watched the city fade in the rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The house was small, and the yard was a disaster. Children’s toys were strewn about. Empty beer cans lay in the lawn and in a flowerpot which held no flowers. The two cars in the driveway, an old van and a truck, had as much rust as paint. The truck had a Hooters bumper sticker, and another in the window that said “Bow Hunter.” Doc shut off the car and turned to Mike.

  “How would you feel about talking to this one?”

  “Me? Why?”

  Doc waved his hand at the yard. “Your appearance could be an asset.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Look at the yard.”

  Mike did, then turned back to Doc. “You think I look like these people can relate to me? I don’t live like this.”

  “You look like you could.”

  Mike opened the door, left the car, and walked to the front door. He could hear a dog going berserk from inside the house, and he hoped he wouldn’t be meeting it.

  A heavyset woman answered his knock. She wore a powder blue shirt and matching sweatpants. Even before she spoke, Mike caught the odor of stale beer. Her greeting was postponed as she screamed at someone about the dog, which thankfully seemed to be locked away behind a door. She closed the door and stepped outside.

  “Sorry about that. What can I help you with?”

  “It’s kind of a delicate issue. I had some questions for you about your daughter.”

  “Don’t got one. You’ve got yourself the wrong address.”

  “Are you sure? I thought you had a daughter named Jessica.”

  “Now what in the world do you want to talk about Jessica for?” She eyed him warily and took a step back. “You a cop? You have to tell me if you are. I know my rights, and if you’re a cop I want you out of here.”

  “I’m not a cop. I need to talk to you about your daughter’s murder.”

  She put a hand on her left hip. From the rear of the house Mike could hear someone yelling at the dog, and more barking.

  “I’m listening.”

  “My girlfriend was killed by the same man who killed your daughter. The man in that sedan across the road lost a niece to this man as well. We’re trying to figure out who killed our loved ones using a new technique that’s probably going to sound pretty unbelievable.”

  He took a breath and just came out with it: “What we’ve found is that by mixing the ashes of these deceased loved ones with ink and giving ourselves tattoos, we can communicate with them while we sleep.” The woman was looking at Mike as though he’d just grown horns or departed a spaceship parked in her front yard. Why did I let Doc talk me into this?

  “Now, I know this sounds crazy, but what we need is just a few grams of your daughter’s remains, assuming she was cremated. We’re thinking that if we’re able to talk to enough of his victims, maybe we’ll be able to put together a bio that’ll help us discover who this murderer is, and stop him from doing it again.”

  She was just flatly staring at him.

  “Is there any part of that you want me to describe in greater detail?”

  She took a pack of cigarettes from a volumin
ous pocket on her left haunch. She lit it and eyed him while her hands and lungs worked to fire the thing. Mike could feel her gaze poring over him, looking for madness or lies in his dress and demeanor. Finally, she said, “Well, that’s fucking ridiculous.”

  She drew long from the cigarette, her jowls shaking as her lungs sucked in the toxins. Then she said, “Hang on,” and turned and walked back in the house.

  Mike waited for a long minute that felt five times as long. When she returned in a fresh haze of blue smoke, the cigarette had been halved, and she was holding a white box that was about a third the size of a shoebox.

  “I always thought it was morbid keeping her in the damn shoe closet anyways. Here.” She handed him the box.

  Mike was as surprised at the weight of the thing as he was at the gesture. “Ma’am, I appreciate it, but I only need a little bit to make—”

  The woman was shaking her head. “Nope. You want her, you got her. Jessica hated being here when she was alive, and if she could hate it when she was dead, I’m pretty sure she would. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, and that was the way things were when that man killed her. I need to get back inside. You have a nice day.”

  She turned away, and the door snapped shut behind her. Mike stared at the box for a few moments and walked back to the car.

  Doc turned the engine on as Mike crossed the road. When Mike slid into the seat, Doc looked at the package and said, “Bit more than we needed.”

  “Yeah. That was weird. I don’t think that woman cared a damn bit what I had to say or about what we did with that box.”